Round table ‘Community, Brexit and Fiction’

Speakers:
Timothy Baker (University of Aberdeen)
Bob Eaglestone (Royal Holloway)
Patrick McGuinness (University of Oxford)
Anne Varty (Royal Holloway)
David Wheatley (University of Aberdeen)

Conveners:
Henriette Korthals Altes (Maison Française d'Oxford)
Bob Eaglestone (Royal Holloway)
Anne Varty (Royal Holloway)

To attend this event, please register here.

Since the leave vote in June 2016, there has been a wealth of literary works that teased out the ramifications of Brexit in many aspects of our lives. On the 31st of January 2020, as the United Kingdom left the EU, the Poet Laureate, normally expected to pen poetry for national events, remained silent. Unsurprisingly so perhaps, given the fragmenting of the country around the fraught questions of the Irish border and Scottish referendum. This round table will explore how this fragmentation of the United Kingdom in the aftermath of Brexit is reflected in the writing of authors from the four nations, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

PROGRAMME:

Session 1:

4 pm: Henriette Korthals Altes (Maison Française d’Oxford): Welcome and Introduction

4.10 pm:  Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway): ‘Brexitland’, Literature and Community

4.30 pm: Patrick McGuinness (University of Oxford): 'Brexit as longue durée'

4.45 pm: Questions and Answers

Session 2:

5 pm:  Tim Baker (University of Aberdeen):  Communities of Opposition: Scotland Against Brexit

5.15 pm: Anne Varty (Royal Holloway): Brexit and Britannia

5.30 pm: David Wheatley (University of Aberdeen): ‘Intellectual simpletons’: the critique of violence and the violence of critique

5.45 pm: Questions and Answers