Writing for Liberty PROGRAMME LICA Building, Lancaster University FRIDAY 17 APRIL 9:30-10:00 Conference Registration and Coffee 10:00-11:30 Parallel Session I Tyranny and the Text I A27 Chair: Magali Armillas-Tiseyra Literature and Politics A04 Chair: Roger Bromley Writing Emergencies A05 Chair: Rehana Ahmed Cecile Bishop, ‘Writing as Resistance? Two Readings of Henri Lopes’s Le Pleurer-Rire’ Hannah Grayson, ‘Dictatorship in the Postcolony: Monénembo and a Metonymy of Violence’ Véronique Tadjo: Reading Hawzhen R. Ahmed, ‘Liberating the Self from the Nation-State’s Domination in Ibrahim Ahmed’s Kurdish Novel Jani Gel’ Peter Anderson, ‘Hugh MacDiarmid’s “Second Hymn to Lenin”’ Danielle Hall, ‘“Freedom, you are my notebook of poetry, to scribble as I please”: Ekushey Poetry and the Creation of Bangladesh’ Gemma Scott, ‘India’s Political Emergency’ Madonna Kalousian, ‘Writing an (Un)civil War of Selves: Matter and Grievability in Hoda Barakat’s The Stone of Laughter’ Phillippa De Yaa Villers, ‘Addressing the Wound: Some Reflections on Child Rape and Poetry in Contemporary South Africa’ 11:30-1:00 Parallel Session II Writing for Palestine A27 Chair: Charlotta Salmi Writing in Africa A04 Chair: Meg Vandermerwe Liberating Diversity A05 Chair: Kathryn Dolan Sarah Irving, ‘Nathan al-Hakim: Faith, Modernity and Tolerance in 1930s Palestine’ Mohammad Hamdan, ‘Post and Politics: Palestinian Prisoners, Smuggled Sperm and Derrida’s Prophecy’ Ahmad Qabaha, ‘“Where is My Small Home Then, Where am I…?”: Mahmoud Darwish on behalf of Homeless Palestinians’ Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo, ‘Opening a Dialogue in Farah’s Crossbones’ Beverley Nambozo, ‘A Thousand Liberties from A Thousand Voices Rising (An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry)’ Miriam Pahl, ‘Contemporary African Fiction and Political Ideologies’ Gabriela Leighton, ‘Reading Postcolonial Women Writing in English’ Fiona Linday, “The Real Me” Makhosazana Xaba, ‘Queer Imagination: Using Fiction to Challenge Homophobia in Africa’
SATURDAY 18 APRIL 10:00-11:30 Parallel Session V Freedom after Neoliberalism A27 Chair: Roger Bromley Disenchantment, Re-enchantments A04 Chair: Lindsey Moore Writing, Economy, Resources A05 Chair: Anshuman Mondal Adam Kelly, ‘Branding Freedom in an Age of Neoliberalism: Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt’ Alexander Beaumont, ‘From Subculture to Urban Pastoral: Zadie Smith’s NW and Britain’s Experiments with Freedom’ Emilio Sauri, ‘Fictions of Form: Freedom and Constraint in Latin American Literature after Neoliberalism’ Claire Chambers, ‘Freedom as Floating or Falling: Liberty in Attia Hosain’s and Leila Aboulela’s British-based Fiction’ Katie Tidmarsh, ‘The Freedom to Believe in Ghosts and Go Hungry to Buy Expensive Suits in Contemporary Literature from the DRC’ Ryan Topper, ‘Re-enchanting the Death Drive: Trauma, Animism, and African Literature’ Emma Dawson Varughese, ‘“Untouchable Water”: Ambedkar and the struggle for equality, told through “the privilege of water” in the Indian graphic novel Bhimayana’ Kathryn Dolan, ‘Writing for Cultural and Culinary Liberty in The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon’ David Firth, ‘Replacing the Struggle with the Suburb: Resisting the Capitalist World-Economy in Nadine Gordimer's No Time Like The Present’ 11:30-12:30 Plenary Session II, A27 Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research/Authors and the World Introduced by Graham Mort and Emily Spiers 12:30-1:30 Lunch LICA Foyer 1:30-2:45 Plenary Session III, A27 Rehana Ahmed & Anshuman Mondal, ‘Writing with Liberty: Literary Controversies’ Chair: Lindsey Moore 2:45-3:15 Refreshments
3:15-4:45 Parallel Session VI Writing of War A04 Chair: Zoe Lambert Writing and Militancy A05 Chair: Roger Bromley Truth, Tales, Dreams, Ethics A27 Chair: Graham Mort Hafsah Bashir, ‘Poetry, Human Liberty and Justice’ Sal Gabier, ‘Mozie’ Toby Norways, ‘In Memoriam’ Frances Hemsley, ‘Perilous Seductions and Parapolitical Resistance in Bessie Head’s The Cardinals’ Tracey Iceton, ‘Herself Alone in Orange Rain’ Matthew Johnson, ‘Dreaming stories, the poor fella and the little waster: Northumbrian and Aboriginal Australian narratives’ Candi Miller, ‘The Presumption of Truth: Harry, Sally, Foucault and the San’ Meg Vandermerwe, ‘The Ethics of Imagining “the Other” in Contemporary South African Writing’ 5:00-6:15 Performance Event: Palestinian Poetry and Scottish Translation A27 MC: Sarah Irving, ed. A Bird is Not a Stone: An Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Poetry (2014) Readers: Ellen McAteer and Ahmad Qabaha ‘[A] fabulous, landmark collection, an example of poetry’s ability to transcend borders, cultures and languages in order to celebrate our shared humanity’ - Carol Ann Duffy, British Poet Laureate 'Thanks to publications like A Bird is Not a Stone, the Palestinian song will sing on, and will be heard wherever people care enough to listen' - The Electronic Intifada