New Light on Tony Harrison

Convenor:
Professor Edith Hall, King’s College London

This landmark conference will illuminate previously neglected aspects of the work of one of Britain’s greatest living poets. An international and transdisciplinary team will analyse Harrison’s more recent creativity, his continuing relationship with ancient theatre, his extensive body of poems written for film, and international perspectives. Emphasis will be laid on his representations of gender and sexuality, his commitment to the ‘public’ role of verse, his evocation of time, imperialism and the southern hemisphere, his personal heroes Heine and Hugo, his debts to material science and materialist philosophy, and his formative encounters with the metres of Dante, Byron and the English sonnet.

Speakers include:
Professor Simon Armitage, University of Oxford
Dr Josephine Balmer, Freelance Poet and Translator
Dr Jacob Blakesley, University of Leeds
Dr Rachel Bower, University of Leeds
Dr Sandie Byrne, University of Oxford
Professor Paul Cartledge, University of Cambridge
Dr Giovanni Greco, La Sapienza
Lee Hall, Cross Street Films
Professor Fiona Macintosh, University of Oxford
Dr Cécile Marshall, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne
Professor Hallie Marshall, University of British Columbia
Professor Blake Morrison, Goldsmith’s, University of London
Dr Christine Regan, Australian National University
Professor Antony Rowland, Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr Henry Stead, Open University
Mr Peter Symes, BBC
Professor Oliver Taplin FBA, University of Oxford
Dinah Wood, Faber and Faber