Encontro Internacional Literatura Inglesa no Mundo:
Do Manuscrito ao Digital | Novos Percursos
OPENING REMARKS
We are very pleased to welcome the Director of the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, Professor Miguel Tamen, the Director of the School Academic Area of Languages, Arts and Cultures, Professor Cristina Pimentel, the Director of the School Department of English Studies, Professor Adelaide Meira Serras, the Director of the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES), Professor Teresa Cid, and you all joining us this morning for the International Conference English Literature in the World: From Manuscript to Digital | New Pathways, organised by Research Group 1 (RG1), English Studies. Literature, within ULICES.
Drawing on literary theory and criticism as well as on literary history, RG1 is dedicated to the studies of English literature from the Middle Ages to the Present Day, privileging interdisciplinary, intercultural, intermedial and interart approaches to these studies, and addressing the still fundamental question of what digital humanities is.
This International Conference brings together academics and researchers working on different periods in English literary history, studying different writers, and adopting various theoretical frameworks, with some emphasis on those of the Digital Humanities.
As we succeeded in avoiding parallel sessions, the participants in English Literature in the World will all be able to get involved in the presentations and discussions of their research results. The same holds true with the audience – academics, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, basic and secondary school teachers and each and every one interested in reading and debating English literature are invited to engage with the Conference presenters in discussions about their research, thus contributing decisively to the event success.
In accordance with the two major purposes of English Literature in the World – to discuss the assumption, opening its website introduction, that “English Literature has been able to reinvent itself along new pathways, from the age of the manuscript to the digital era”, and to engage in this discussion, not only the Conference presenters, but also the audience – we devised a varied programme unfolding in 4 large thematic areas, and featuring diverse session formats.
The thematic areas – “Interdisciplinary Crossways in Medieval Literature: Text and Image”, “The Renaissance: A Bridge between Two Worlds”, “Defining Modernity: From the Restoration Through Romanticism” and “Reconsidering Modernism and Postmodernism” – include Plenary Sessions, Thematic Panels, Discussion Panels and Exploratory Discussions implicitly addressing the same question: how are we currently defining and studying English literature of the past and present?
In the interim, after thanking all those who made this English Literature in the World possible, wishing that you will find the Conference thought-provoking and gratifying, and expressing RG1’s intention to hold it biannually, I leave you pondering the contradictory implications of the definition of English literature produced by Stephen Greenblatt, editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th edition, at the beginning of its Preface:
One of the joys of literature in English is its spectacular abundance. Even within the geographical confines of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, where the majority of texts in this collection originated, one can find more than enough distinguished and exciting works to fill the pages of this anthology many times over. But English literature is not confined to the British Isles; it is a global phenomenon. (…) Beowulf’s remarkable translator in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Seamus Heaney, is one of the great contemporary masters of English literature (…) born in Northern Ireland (…) What matters is that the language in which Heaney writes is English, and this fact links him powerfully with the authors assembled in these volumes, a linguistic community that stubbornly refuses to fit comfortably within any firm geographical or ethnic or national boundaries. (My emphases.)
7 May 2018
Alcinda Pinheiro de Sousa
Coordinator of the Conference Organising Committee
Credits
Website design | Concepção do site
Alcinda Pinheiro de Sousa e Pedro Estácio
Consulting | Consultoria
Ricardo Bonacho
Content management | Gestão de conteúdos
Maria de Jesus C. Relvas
Mariana Pacheco Loureiro
Susana Oliveira
Acknowlegments | Agradecimentos
Diana Marques
Sara Henriques
Promoted by ULICES | Promovido por CEAUL
Research Group 1 | Grupo de Investigação 1
Sponsored by portuguese national funds by the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência
e Tecnologia, I.P., under the project PEST-OE/ELT/UI0114/2013
Financiado por fundos nacionais através da FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., no âmbito do projecto PEST-OE/ELT/UI0114/2013.
SITE EM ACTUALIZAÇÃO
International Conference English Literature in the World: From Manuscript to Digital | New Pathways 