SamuelBeckettandWorldLiterature

UniversityofKent,4-5May2016

KeynoteSpeakers

ProfessorStanleyE.Gontarski

ProfessorFábiodeSouzaAndrade

GuestArtist

AshishAvikunthak

Sponsors

CentreforModernEuropeanLiterature

FacultyofHumanitiesResearchFund

DepartmentofComparativeLiterature

DepartmentofModernLanguages

DepartmentofReligiousStudies

TheSchoolofEnglish

GulbenkianCinema

UFRN,CentrodeCiênciasHumanas,LetraseArtes

Organisers

SelvinYaltir,RosanneAraújo,TituChakraborty

ConferenceReport

The ‘Samuel Beckett andWorld Literature’ international conference beganwith the idea of

rethinking Samuel Beckett’sworks in light of recent developments inworld literature. The

word‘and’inthetitlewasthuscentraltoitsconceptualisation:theconferencenotonlyhoped

to explore Beckett’s place in literature, theatre studies, performance and ]ilm around the

world,butitsintentionwasalsotoaddresssomeoftheongoingdebatesforandagainstthe

disciplineofworldliteraturefromaliterary,socio-politicalandculturalperspective.

The conference hosted speakers and participants from sixteen different countries:

IrelandandmainlandEuropetocountriessuchasBrazil,China, IndiaandtheUnitedStates.

The panellists consisted of independent scholars, students, lecturers, theatre directors, and

experimental ]ilmartists.Thiswidegatheringdemonstratedthe internationaldissemination

ofBeckett’sworks,andWaitingforGodotinparticular.Thepapersanddiscussions,moreover,

brought to attention the variousways inwhich hiswritings have been translated, adapted,

often appropriated and re-created in new contexts and in different cultures, frequently

building a tension with Beckett’s directorial precisions ever since the ]irst performance of

GodotinParis.

TheSBWLconferencebeganon4MaywithProfessorShaneWeller’sintroductiontothe

conceptofworldliterature.StartingwithGoethe’sfamouscommenttoEckermannaboutthe

emergenceofWeltliteratur, the introductory lecturehighlighted the re-con]igurationsof the

conceptoverthelastcentury,uptotheongoingdebatesbetweenDamroschandApterinthe

twenty-]irst century.This initiated aplatform to exploreBeckett’s place inworld literature:

not just as a Nobel Laureate or modernist commodity of European and North American

syllabuses,butasawriterwhogains(orfailstogain)fromtranslationandcirculationwithin

thespaceandrepublicofworldliterature,andthefamiliaryetforeignnatureofwhoseworks

resonate(orfailtoresonate)acrosscultures.

Professor Stanley E. Gontarski was next to present the ]irst keynote lecture on ‘The

Remains of theModern: Samuel Beckett's Elsewhere’. The paper ]leshed out the important

shift inBeckett'scareer,movingawayfromJoycean ‘omniscienceandomnipotence’andinto

theBeckettian ‘elsewhere’,whichheexplainedasaparadoxical stateof ‘in-betweenness’: at

thesametimehereandthere,rootedandrootless,nowhereandeverywhere,andsoon.This

displacement in Beckett’s works proved central throughout the rest of the conference and

discussions that ensued. The panel on ‘Beckett, (In)Corporeality’ on Day 2, for instance,

elaboratedtheantitheticalnatureofBeckett’scorpus:whileDorottyaJászayinvestigatedthe

BeckettianbodyinperformanceandEleanorGreenstudiedthefailuresinbodilyfunctionsin

Beckett’s prose, Dr. Arthur Broom]ield, in contrast, discussed pure language and the

Beckettianvisionas‘freedofalltrappingsofthecorporeal’.

ThekeynotelecturebyProfessorFábiodeSouzaAndrade,alsoonDay2,establishedthe

longevity of Beckett’s impact on contemporary Brazilian experimental theatre and ]ilm,

through video clips and discussions on adaptations and cinematic recreations of Beckett’s

works.Thelecturewasdirectlyrelevanttothecentralthemesthattheconferencewasaiming

to thrash out, and it led to an enthusiastic Q&A session and also re]lected the approach of

severalotherpapers.

During the ]irst panel on Day 1, entitled ‘Transnational Beckett’, Dr. Edward Bizub

discussed the intertextual religious allusions in Beckett’s Murphy and other writings in

comparisonwithworkssuchasTheHeartofDarknessandAPassagetoIndia,drawingfrom

postcolonial theory; Dr. Douglas Atkinson next discussed the impact of Beckett and

modernismonJapan’sKojinKaratani;andJamesBaxterexaminedBeckett’sworksinlightof

Americanpostmodernism.

As part of the panel on ‘Transcultural Technology’, Julie Bénard considered Beckett’s

theatre as a ‘hypermedium’ and examined Atam Egoyan’s Eh Joe as an intermedial

transpositionof thetelevisionplay.Dr. JeanAntoine-Dunne,whowasunableto joinus from

theUniversity of theWest Indies andwhose paperwas read by Selin Siral, drew a parallel

betweentheCaribbeanpoetKamauBrathwaite’sworksandBeckett’sproseandtheatre,using

Deleuze’snotionsofnooshock.Dr.PaulMarch-RussellexploredBeckett’sshortprose‘TheLost

Ones’ in light of science ]iction and late modernism, and compared the frustrated desires

representing the “middle passage” between minority and mass culture with tropes in the

worksofBrianAldiss.

In the panel on ‘Beckett’s International Reciprocation’ on Day 2, we moved from Dr.

Snežana Kalinić’s paper exploring the postmodernist ‘sequels’ of GodotinSerbiantheatre,

toaHindumythologicalresponseinDr.PriyankaVaidya’sanalysisofkarmayoga,andended

withRobertMurtagh’sinvestigationintoHispanicsimpatíathatrejected Beckett’s works due

to the lack of cultural resonance. In the parallel session on ‘Beckett and the Cosmopolitan

Avant-Garde’, Dr Bartosz Lutostański discussed Beckett’s influence on experimental post-

war Polish cinema; Juan Luis Toribio Vazquez spoke of Beckett’s Godot in light of its

circularity in lightof itsrelationto theconceptofWorldLiterature;andMatthieuProtinre-

examinedtheinitialreceptionofGodotinParisthroughBeckett’s'Irishness'.

In addition to the transnational approach to Beckett’s works, the conference held a

special roundtable panel on ‘Renegotiating Beckett’s Ireland’, where Moonyoung Hong,

Bernadette Fox, Holly Anna Furey, Eimhin Walker, Kurt McGee and Chris J. Wrycraft from

Trinity College, Dublin, explored Beckett’s link to Ireland during his lifetime and his more

recentrebirthinDublin.The]irstfourpaperswerecentredaroundtherecentIrishPanPan

Theatre production of Beckett’s radio play All That Fall; the penultimate paper explored

Beckett’s commodi]ication as a national Irish treasure; and the last looked at the writer’s

persistenttracesofIrishhumourandthecommonelementofself-referentialityfoundinhis

Irish predecessors and contemporaries. The panel led to a thought-provoking discussion

regardingBeckett’sambiguoustieswithhisnativecountry.

The last panel ofDay1was entitled: ‘Beckett, Translation, andWorldLiterature’. This

beganwithDr.PatriciaNovilloCorvalán’spaperthataddressedkeyissuesinworldliterature

throughBeckett’stranslationsofMexicanpoetrypublishedintheanthologycommissionedby

UNESCO, with Octavio Paz as the editor. Next, Dr. Llewellyn Brown reconsidered the very

important topicofBeckettasaself-translatorworking inFrenchandEnglish,usingextracts

fromTextespour rienand Texts forNothing todemonstrate the ‘postmodern rejectionof an

“original”text’.WeiZheyuandMaryO’Byrnefollowedthisstrandofthoughtindeliveringtheir

jointpaperandperformanceentitled: ‘100%GuaranteedBeckett:HatItBeenBilingual’.The

twoposited through their practice-based research thatmuchofBeckett’sworks—Lucky’s

speech inGodot, for example, in English andwhen translated into Chinese— resisted any

singleexegeticalparadigmorhegemonicvoice,andparticularlythetotalisingeffectof‘global

culture’.

AttheendofDay1,wereturnedtothequestionofBeckettandworldliterature,withthe

screening of Ashish Avikunthak’s feature ]ilmKalkimanthankatha (2015) at the Gulbenkian

Cinema.Inhis]ilm,theIndiancinematographer,whoisamongstthepioneersofthe‘cinemaof

prayoga’,translatedandrelocatedthedialogueinGodotattheMahaKumbhMelainAllahabad,

areligiousfestivalthattakesplaceeverytwelveyears,withtwoBengalitravellerswaitingfor

themanifestationofKalki.VladimirandEstragonareherere-conceptualisedinanorth-Indian

religio-ritualisticsetting,buzzingwiththeunseenvoicesofmillionsofhomelesssanyasinsor

travelingpilgrimsinthebackground.TheQ&Asessionwiththeartistattheendestablished

thatmorethananadaptation,the]ilmisanewartisticcreationofapseudocouplediscussing

everythingfromsunyataandavatars,tofemininityandMaoTse-tung’s‘LittleRedBook’,while

the ritualistic movements the characters performed captured the highly localised yogic

practices (reminiscent of ‘do the tree’ in Beckett). The narrative and disjointed ]ilmic

structure,moreover,consistedofapatternofrepetitionandcircularitycontainingparatactic

conversations, echoing Beckett’s play, which indicated an intermedial transmission of the

Beckettianformfromtheatreintoexperimentalcinema.

Theclosingpanelon ‘BeckettandtheGlobalSocio-PoliticalField’beganwithEva

Kuras’examinationofGodot’stopographyandits liminalsenseoftimeandplace.Thepaper

related the simultaneously abstract yet local aspect ofGodotwith its translatability across

sociopolitical divides. The following paper by Richard Pettifer and Andrew Fuhrmann

consideredBeckett’slegacyfromanOrwellianpointofviewwiththesuggestionthatBeckett’s

art of failure passively resisted being pigeonholed into any political system, including the

global anti-capitalist cause. In the concluding paper, Dr. Mischa Twitchin shared his own

artisticadaptationin]ilmofBeckett’s‘Catastrophe’toexpresstheneedtodissociateBeckett

frompreconceivednotionsenforcedbydictatorialsocieties.The threepapersraisedseveral

verycentralquestionswithregardstoBeckettstudiestoday,someofwhichwerebroughtup

duringtheQ&Athatensued.

Thesuccessofthisclosingpanelandtheconferenceasawholelayinthewaythatthey

problematisedanysimplisticunderstandingofworldliterature–fromwhateverculturaland

multidisciplinary perspective –with Beckett at the centre. The panelists, keynote speakers,

artists (including actors), directors and cinematographers all addressed some of the key

ongoing debates in the ]ield of world literature and Samuel Beckett, while also raising the

stakesforfuturemodesofenquiry.

NoteofThanks

Apart fromthe immensesupportandcontributionwereceived fromtheCentre forModern

EuropeanLiterature,wearealsoverygratefultotheFacultyofHumanitiesfortheResearch

Fund, the Vice Chancellor’s Discretionary Fund, and the Departments of Comparative

Literature, Modern Languages, Religious Studies, the School of English at the University of

Kent,andtheUFRNinBrazil,withoutwhosevaluablecontributionswewouldnothavebeen

able to host this event. We are also very grateful for all the help, advice, and support we

receivedalongthewayfromProfessorShaneWeller,thekeynotespeakersandspecialguest,

Kelly Leonard from Kent Hospitality, Rebecca Brown and Liz Moran from the Gulbenkian,

Melanie Dilly, Jo Spoon, Angelos Evangelou, and Juan Luis from the Department of

Comparative Literature, Jacqui Martlew, Selin Siral, the ]inance team at SECL, and all the

conferencedelegates.

OtherDetails

Belowisthelinktotheof]icialconferencewebsite.Itcontainsthecallforpapers,andallthe

informationonkeynotespeakers,organisers,sponsors,andotherdetails:

https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/beckettworldlit/

Linktothe]inalconferenceprogramme,withallthepaperabstractsandshortbioslinkedto

thepapertitles:https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/beckettworldlit/category/conference-programme/

Linktodownloadtheposter,designedbySelinSiral,andthePDFprogramme:

https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/beckettworldlit/]iles/2015/10/SBWL-Final-Programme-.pdf

SelectedphotographsfromtheconferenceareavailableonGoogledriveandcanbeaccessed

through:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_Jpqg9mXmjLemRIUjB6SG9WY2s

FeedbackfromParticipants

‘Theconferencedevelopedathemethat isvery important inrelationtoBeckett’swork,and

whichwasexplored fromamultiplicityofpointsofview.Thecontributionswereextremely

enriching.Personally,IalsoappreciatedtheinclusionofparticipantsfromFrance:itisanoft-

neglected dimension of Beckett studies, but which is important for the diversi]ication of

critical approaches. The atmosphere was very warm and convivial, not least owing to the

meticulous work of preparation, and the very attentive presence and involvement of the

organisers.’-LlewellynBrown,LycéeinternationaldeSaint-Germain-en-Laye.

‘Theconferencewasverydiverseandexciting,reallyhonouringtheideaofworldliterature.’-

ProfessorFábiodeSouzaAndrade,UniversityofSãoPaulo,Brazil.

‘AlthoughIwasonlyabletoattendpartoftheconference,whatstruckmewasa)thediversity

of the papers, applying a range ofmethods tomost aspects of Beckett's oeuvre, and b) the

warmth and camaraderie of the event. Both are testimony to the hardworkput in by the

organiserstoensurethatthiswasawell-coordinatedandwell-receivedoccasion.’-Dr.Paul

March-Russell,UniversityofKent.

SelectionofConferencePhotos