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Words on the Move II

When:
Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

No booking required

An Afternoon of Readings and Discussion with Timberlake Wertenbaker, Catherine Grant and Valentina Castagna

Introduction by Marina Warner

The workshop "Words on the Move II" will reflect on current developments in broadcasting literary works and explore contemporary approaches to acoustic media, particularly by women and about women. Invited speakers will talk about oral and sound experimentation in performance and drama, written or adapted for radio or new digital platforms. The workshop will also ask, 'Can developments in the use of voice, 'spoken word' events, and the broadcasting of literary works inform the creative writing workshop as a collaborative and participatory space?'

Key Note Speakers:

  • Timberlake Wertenbaker, Playwright, adaptor, translator.

  • Dr Catherine Grant (University of Sussex; Professor of Digital Media and Screen Studies at Birkbeck College, from Sept. 1 2017)

  • Dr Valentina Castagna (Associate Research Fellow, Birkbeck; University of Palermo)

Words on the Move I (November 1, 2016) focussed on poetry in performance, in connection with the international project Stories in Transit (2016-ongoing), and the work of the Watadd Research Network, to nourish storytelling and other forms of expression in refugee communities. A full list of speakers and research questions is available at this link. This second event in the series 'Words on the Move' is also associated with Stories in Transit and the work of the Watadd Research Network, and is addressed to scholars and lecturers interested in these themes, students from MA and PhD in English and Creative Writing from the School of Arts and Humanities of Birkbeck, as well as interested members of the public.

This event is free to attend, but please reserve your space using our online booking form.

Programme

  • 2.00 Introduction - Marina Warner

  • 2.30 Timberlake Wertenbaker, 'Breaking the Sound Barrier: radio and the imagination'

  • 3.30 Valentina Castagna, '"The snake under the sand": Unearthing buried voices in Selma Dabbagh's radio play The Brick.' An exploration of the realistic radio play The Brick,written by Selma Dabbagh and produced by Sarah Bradshaw for BBC Radio 4 in 2014 (Afternoon Drama). On a difficult journey from Eizariya to Jerusalem, a Palestinian Christian woman named Rasha Khoury is forced to rediscover her family's role into the community. With a specific eye on the use of the voice and sound in radio drama, I will be focusing on the main character's journey towards a new understanding of her identity in relationship with gender issues and her own positioning within family myths and history.

  • 4.30 Break

  • 5.00 Catherine Grant, '"The Dreaming Child" on the Move to the Radio: From Karen Blixen through Harold Pinter to Joanna Hogg' - An examination of the adaptation relay between Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen's short story "the Dreaming Child" (1942), Harold Pinter's unrealised screen play adaptation of this work (1997/2000), and the recently produced radio version of these works adapted and directed by celebrated British filmmaker Joanna Hogg for BBC Radio 4's Unmade Movies series (2015).

  • 5.30 -6.30 Q&A

The workshop is supported by the School of the Arts and Humanities, Birkbeck; the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck; and the British Comparative Literature Association (BCLA)