Dr Anne-Marie Evans, Subject Director for English Literature, warmly invites all students to the the inaugural ‘Words Matter’ lecture, which this year will be delivered by Dr Kaley Kramer.
I’m delighted to invite you to our very first Words Matter lecture, on Monday 9th October (Week 4) from 6pm in Temple Hall. This event is open to all English Literature students, and there will be a wine reception before and after the lecture. It’s going to be a wonderful evening, so please do come along!
English Literature: Words Matter Lecture 2017
Monday 9th October (Week 4) from 6pm in Temple Hall
English Literature is proud to launch the inaugural Words Matter lecture for 2017. The lecture will be given by Dr Kaley Kramer (York St John University) and will be followed by a wine reception.
#changehistory: Literature and Hope
The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing a future can be
(Virginia Woolf, 1915.)
We can’t seem to get enough of imagining the End. In 2017, we are constantly encouraged to think of ourselves living in a book – The Handmaid’s Tale perhaps, or 1984. News media is suddenly obsessed with the plausibility of dystopian narratives previously taken as allegorical fables. Fiction, television, film, and video games seem to increasingly pander to romantic nihilism, inviting readers – and viewers and players – to indulge in the promise of a world destroyed, the individual left ‘free’ and unfettered. But what kinds of characters survive and what kind of world do these hopes imagine?
We need to change the stories we tell.
Literature has always been an expression of hope. It is a vital repository of the best responses to the worst circumstances. This lecture will consider the ways in which post-apocalyptic literature offers hope rather than despair. If the stories we tell continue to lead us to the same ending, then we need to drastically change how we read these texts. As well as exploring the limits of ‘mainstream’ apocalypse narratives, hope also exists in listening to and taking seriously narratives that challenge the exclusivity of fictional, post-apocalyptic futures.
This event is FREE and open to all Literature students (undergraduate and postgraduate). If you have any questions, please contact the Subject Director, Dr Anne-Marie Evans (a.evans@yorksj.ac.uk)
You can book your free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/english-literature-words-matter-lecture-2017-tickets-38429786526