The 10th Anniversary Conference of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Association in association with C21 the centre for contemporary writing at the University of Brighton.
University of Brighton Grand Parade site
Saturday 17 October 2015
N.B. We are extending the deadline of the conference to 22 September.
Keynote Speakers
Prof Patricia Duncker, University of Manchester ( with questions from Dr Kate Aughterson Uni B) and Prof Lucie Armitt, University of Lincoln Patricia am Lucie pm
The very existence of the term contemporary women’s writing suggests a relationship as well as a difference, a continuity, and a radical creative break between women’s writing from the 1960’s and 70’s onwards, and those works of women writers which came before. Simultaneously it suggests writing which captures the evolving spirit and concerns of the twenty first century with experimentation, innovation and speculation. Contemporary women writers have long explored their present through both the past and the future, through historical explorations of women¹s lives and worlds, and through imaginary times ahead. This conference seeks to ask what has been the big news of the last ten years in contemporary women’s writing, and what may define it in future decades. We hope to explore contemporary women writers’ relationships to the past and the future, their continuities, legacies, radical breaks and innovations, including – but by no means limited to – the following topics: historical fiction; utopias / dystopias; feminist genealogies and generations; gendered temporalities; the politics of (re)writing the past and of imagining the future; women’s science fiction and fantasy; new genres/ new forms; the future of feminist literary criticism; writing in an age of crisis; defining the contemporary; women’s writing and the new technologies; women’s writing and the literary market place.
Any questions please contact Gina Wisker on g.wisker@brighton.ac.uk
The registration fees for this event will be £45 for salaried delegates; £30 for students and unsalaried delegates.
The roundtable has the following contributors :
Patricia Duncker, Lucie Armitt, Sneja Gunew, Emily Blewitt and Poonam Gunaseelan. It will be just one hour, *2.40-3.40pm – we envisage that each panel member will take just a few minutes to ‘reflect’ on the themes and then take questions in the time left.
book launch Prof Mary Eagleton and Dr Emma Parker are launching their new book Mary Eagleton and Emma Parker (Eds) Vol. 10 Palgrave’s History of British Women’s Writing: 1970 to the present. With Emma Parker, Mary Eagleton, and Ben Doyle (Palgrave Macmillan)
Talk Jane Anger, one of the co-founders of Silver Moon women’s bookshop in London, will talk about how changes in publishing and book culture over the last 10 years have impacted on women writers. This will take place before the roundtable.
Mary Eagleton’s talk on the Friday 16th is entitled ”Chance and Choice: the Literature of Women’s Upward Mobility’ and is on University of Brighton Falmer site 4-5 in Mayfield 115 Mayfield is the building second along from the bus stop FALMER site – go down two floors NB taxis like to try and take you to Sussex (which is across the motorway from us)-please enlighten them!
Were eating at Marroccos on the seafront, Hove, longish walk from town- at 7 on the 16th Friday –
please fill the form out or let me know which of all of this you are coming to.
*** LECTURE ***
PROFESSOR MARY EAGLETON
Friday 16 October 2015
4-5PM, Falmer Campus, University of Brighton
You are warmly invited to this talk by the founder of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Association, Professor Mary Eagleton, who will be speaking to staff and students at the University of Brighton. There is no registration fee for this event.
You are welcome to join us for a meal after this talk at 7PM at Marroccos on the Brighton/ Hove seafront. (your expense)
Please let us know via this online form whether you would like to attend.
ABOUT THE CWWA
The Contemporary Women’s Writing Network was founded in 2005 through a call by Mary Eagleton. It has evolved into the international Contemporary Women’s Writing Association with a lively Postgraduate Contemporary Women’s Writing Network (PG CWWN) and a planned Australasian chapter, a prize-winning CWW journal, an annual prize for the best essay, conference prizes, and other scholarly recognition. During 2012-4 Lucie Armitt and the CWWA ran a postgraduate skills programme for early-career researchers, funded by the AHRC. There is support for reading groups, author-focused conferences, and small events. This conference is a way of reassessing our work within CWWA and the status of the field more generally, and celebrating and planning the future of the Association.
Contemporary Women's Writing Association 