Event Archive
This is an archive of past events within the Department of English Studies. Please see our current events for forthcoming activities.
Some of our public events are recorded and are available as podcasts via our Research English At Durham blog.
Literary Minds
Do novelists and poets ‘hear’ the voices of the characters and speakers who people their imaginary worlds? In what sense can voices from the literary past enter a writer’s creative process? Do readers experience fictional beings as heard presences? This public symposium explores the minds of writers, readers and characters as participant agents in literary experience. With a lecture by Professor Pat Waugh on Virigina Woolf, followed by a conversation with the acclaimed novelist Pat Barker and a panel discussion led by Professor Linda Anderson from the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, it will open up new perspectives on literature in order to challenge our understanding of creativity, reading, fictional minds, narrative and inner speech, memory, trauma and therapy.
All welcome.
Further information
This event is part of the linked programme of events around Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everyday, a major exhibition on voice-hearing produced by Hearing the Voice and Palace Green Library.
About Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everyday
Hearing a voice in the absence of any speaker is one of the most unusual, complex, and mysterious aspects of human experience. Typically regarded, as a symptom of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, voice-hearing is increasingly recognized as an important part of many people’s lives and experience, as well as a phenomenon that has had profound significance, not only for individuals, but across communities, cultures, and history.
From the revelatory and inspirational voices of medieval mystics to those of imaginary friends in childhood, and from the inner voices of writers as they craft their characters to the stories of people from the international Hearing Voices Movement, this exhibition will explore the complexity and diversity of the experience and interpretation of voice-hearing.
This exhibition draws on the work of Hearing the Voice, a large interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing based at Durham University and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everday will be installed at Palace Green Library, Durham, UK from 5 November 2016 to 26 February 2017.
For more information please see the exhibition website: www.hearingvoicesdu.org
Contact hearing.thevoice@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.
Related Links
READ Blog
Research in English At Durham (READ) blog showcasing the the literary research emerging from the Department of English Studies
Events
We host a large number of conferences, lectures and seminars each year, many of them open to the public. Find out more on our Events page.
Podcasts
Many of our public lectures, seminars and conferences are recorded, and can be listened to as podcasts.
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Next Event
- 20th January 2021
- Sensory Experiments in Nineteenth-Century Literature
- Online (Zoom)
- Dr Erica Fretwell (University of Albany) and Dr Shannon Draucker (Siena College)