Beyond the Linear Narrative:

CAL FOR PAPERS - RECONFIGURATIONS

2011-05-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

Reconfigurations: Remaking Narrative, Reinventing Genre in Postcolonial and Diasporic Writing and Performance

10, 11 & 12 November.

The Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing is delighted to invite expressions of interest for the final international conference in the 'Beyond the Linear Narrative' 3-year AHRC project.

Papers and panel proposals are invited on the following themes.

*Reinventing genres in contemporary postcolonial and diasporic writing and performances
*Fractured narrative as dissent
*Reconfigured forms, reconfigured identities
*Disassembling the grand narratives; telling stories after Empire.
*Multistranded pasts, multiple voices.
*Reshaping modes of life writing.
*Performing identities; identities as performance.
*Fragmentation as a rejection of patriarchy
*Poetry and its transformations in postcolonial and diasporic contexts.
*Reconfiguring the cultural scene; new presences in contemporary writing and performance.

Please send all submissions and queries to b.pester@gold.ac.uk

Please see our website for more details about the Pinter Centre and the Beyond the Linear Narrative project.

www.gold.ac.uk/pinter-centre

More about the conference:

This conference will be the third and culminating annual conference put on as part of the Goldsmiths Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing AHRC-funded project, Beyond the Linear Narrative: Fractured Narrative in Writing and Performance in the Postcolonial Era. This research project has been exploring the links between inter-cultural and political change and the emergence, or re-emergence, of non-linear and fractured narrative, particularly in postcolonial and diasporic contexts. If these fractured and experimental forms are a response to the breakdown of the west's grand narratives of progress, we have asked, what forms of resistance or revision do they provide? In what ways can they be seen to emerge from the increasing interaction of different cultures in the colonial, post-colonial and post-Cold War world? How do such fractured narratives work in postcolonial and diasporic writing and performance?

The project has looked at these issues through three seminar strands offering in-depth studies of three different areas: African diasporic writing, theatre and performance, Caribbean/diasporic life writing, and gender and sexuality in contemporary British diasporic writing and performance. We have drawn in both scholars and creative artists, and our research has, we believe, already contributed new thinking to the understanding of postcolonial and diasporic literature and performance, their evolution and development, and to the assessment of the nature and impact of contemporary creative practices. This final conference will be a 'festival' of events as well as an academic interrogation of the nature of narrative, performance and genre in today's multiethnic, multicultural world. Its aim will be to investigate how postcolonial and diasporic writing and performance use fractured forms to explore our culturally diverse society's competing and conflicting narratives, and to explore, through creative practice as well as academic analysis, the way these art forms make and shape new and multiple identities, both in terms of cultural affiliation, and of gender and sexuality.

The programme will comprise academic papers, readings and performances, as well as workshops from our two artists in residence. The conference will be open not only to scholars, writers, performers, students from Goldsmiths and other universities, but to local participating schools and members of the general public. We aim to create an atmosphere in which scholarly research and artistic practice are made accessible to a wide audience. The conference will build on the work of the three seminar strands, though it will range more widely among diasporic groups, as well as on the successful conferences in 2009 and 2010, which each, over three-day periods, hosted over 100 participants and contributors, and included workshops, rehearsed play-readings, performed poetry and full theatrical performances in Goldsmiths' George Wood Theatre. The conference is particularly timely in the context of the transformations in the British as well as international cultural scene, where many of the richest contributions to artistic and cultural life come from the flow of traditions across borders, and the fusion of diasporic cultures with each other and that of their hosts. It is timely also in light of the current debate initiated by the Prime Minister into how we understand multiculturalism and cultural plurality today.

www.gold.ac.uk/pinter-centre
http://thepintercentre.blogspot.com

Egusi Soup - Rehearsed Reading

2011-02-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

Hot on the heels of a packed David Shields event, we are delighted that Janice Okoh will be introducing and discussing a rehearsed reading of her play Egusi Soup on 23rd February.

The reading will be followed, as ever, by refreshments and discussion of the work and its influences.

We hope to see you all there.

http://www.gold.ac.uk/pinter-centre for more info.

David Shields

2011-02-15T15:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.davidshields.com/

On February 16th, David Shields will be reading at Goldsmiths from his new 'Manifesto' Reality Hunger.

For more information visit the Pinter Centre Website: www.gold.ac.uk/pinter-centre.

Conference Announcement

2010-07-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

Transformations of Narrative in the Postcolonia Era

Conference 11th, 12th, 13th November 2010

Proposals for papers are invited on the following themes:

This will be the second in a series of three international conferences produced by the Pinter Centre as part of our AHRC-funded research project entitled
'Beyond the Linear Narrative: Fractured Narratives in Diasporic Writing and Performance in the Postcolonial Era'

Through performed papers, academic papers and workshops, the goal of the conference will be to address the central question:

'Is fracturing central to postcolonial narrativity?'

Proposals for performed and academic papers welcome.

* Is fracturing central to postcolonial narrativity?

* How has the use of non-western forms transformed aesthetics in
postcolonial writing and performance?

* Locations, Dislocations & Postcolonialisms

* Are diasporic identities the same as fractured identities?

* Narrative hybridity & heteroglossia in the global world

* Transformations of narrative in new technology

* Contesting the post- in Postcolonial [writing and performance? BP]

* Intersections of diasporas and diasporic writing

* First nation/Indigenous writing and performance and the Transformation
of narrative

* Postcolonial/postmodernism revisited

All proposals and enquiries to be sent to b.pester@gold.ac.uk

Deadline for proposals: 30th August
Deadline for papers: 30th September

More about the research project:

The AHRC is funding a three-year research project which is being led by Professor Robert Gordon as Principal Investigator, Professor Helen Carr as Research Consultant, and Professor Blake Morrison and Dr Osita Okagbue as Co-Investigators. Research will be undertaken by a number of scholars and practitioners working in the departments of Drama and English and Comparative Literature, but there will be creative and critical input from a number of other disciplines. Taking Pinter's work as a starting point for, or symbol of, the fracturing of narrative across many art-forms in twentieth and twenty-first century work, this research project asks a series of questions about the links between inter-cultural and political change and the emergence, or re-emergence, of non-linear and fractured narrative. Focussing on literature and performance, particularly in postcolonial and diasporic contexts, it will ask why non-linear narrative has been such a feature of this period's artistic production. If these fractured and experimental forms are a response to the breakdown of the west's grand narratives of progress, what forms of resistance or revision do they provide? In what ways can they be seen to emerge from the increasing interaction of different cultures in the colonial, post-colonial and post-Cold War world? How do such fractured narratives work in postcolonial and diasporic writing and performance? How can these fractured forms explore our culturally diverse society's competing and conflicting narratives?

More about the Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing:

The College-based Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing was formally inaugurated in June 2003, with Harold Pinter as Honorary President.
This is an interdisciplinary research centre, involving principally the Departments of English & Comparative Literature and of Drama, the latter organising and hosting the Centre, and with links with Media and Communications, Music, PACE and the Digital Studios.
Though he is best known as a playwright, what distinguishes Harold Pinter is his achievement in several different media – as a poet, novelist, screenwriter, dramatist for television and radio, and polemicist for freedom of expression and human rights. In keeping with this, through its projects the Pinter Centre initiates and promotes research into all aspects of the theory and practice of creative writing and performance.
In line with Pinter's keen awareness of the centrality of political issues, the Centre is particularly committed to looking at postcolonial and diasporic literature and performance, and the ways in which contemporary creativity is forging new forms that respond to the cultural diversity of the world in which we live. It also has a strong interest in questions of gender, and writing and performing the body.

Chimalum Nwankwo reads from and discusses his work

2010-06-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

Reading and Discussion : 109 Deptford Town Hall Building, Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:30:00 BST

We are delighted to announce our latest event at the Pinter centre for Performance and creative Writing.

Nigerian Scholar and Poet Chimalum Nwankwo will be reading from his latest collection of poems Of the Deepest Shadows and Prisons of Fire on 29th June
at 5:30pm.

The reading will be followed by a chance to discuss the work with the author.

This is the last in this years series of seminars presented by the Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing as part of the AHRC-funded
project: 'Beyond The Linear Narrative'

The event is free and drinks & snacks will be provided.

Event to be held in Deptford Town Hall building room 109. 5:30. 29th June.

About Chimalum Nwankwo

Born in Anambra State, Nigeria, Chimalum Nwankwo was educated in Nigeria
and the United States of America. He holds a Ph.D in English from the
University of Texas, Austin, and is currently a Professor of English at
North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro. His other publications
include the following poetry collections:

Feet of the Limping Dancers (1987), Toward the Aerial Zone (1988), Voices
from Deepwater (1997), The Womb in the Heart (2002),

Professor Nwankwo won the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry prize in
1998 and again in 2002. He was awarded the senior Fullbright Scholarship
for scholarly research and teaching in Nigeria.

Aminatta Forna reads from The Memory of Love

2010-04-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

Award-winning author Aminatta Forna will be reading from her new book The Memory of Love (Bloomsbury 2010) as part of the Pinter Centre’s ongoing AHRC-funded project ‘Beyond the Linear Narrative’.
The reading will be followed by a chance to discuss the work with the author. Wine and refreshments will be served.

April 28th, 5:30pm, Senior Common Room, Goldsmiths, University of London

About The Memory of Love
“Delivering to us a common centre, no matter where we happen to have been born, Aminatta Forna tackles those great human experiences of love and war, of friendship, rivalry, of death and triumphant survival. Often darkly funny, written with gritty realism and tenderness, The Memory of Love is a profoundly affecting work” KIRAN DESAI, winner of the Booker Prize

“A subtle and complex exploration, daring in depth and scope, of both the psyche of a war and the attractions which it holds for an outsider. Forna is a writer of great talent who does not shy from tackling the toughest questions about why humans do the things they do: from the smallest acts of betrayal to the greatest acts of love.” MONICA ALI

About the author
Aminatta Forna was born in Scotland and raised in West Africa. Her first book The Devil that Danced on the Water was runner-up for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2003. Her novel Ancestor Stones was winner of the 2008 Hurston Wright Legacy award, nominated for the International IMPAC Award and selected by the Washington Post as one of the most important books of 2006. In 2007 Vanity Fair named Aminatta as one of Africa’s most promising new writers. Aminatta has also written for magazines and newspapers, radio and television, and presented television documentaries on Africa’s history and art. Aminatta Forna lives in London with her husband.

New Event - 17th March

2010-03-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

Exotics, Visitors, Immigrants and Citizens: Africa on the British Stage

Dr. Osita okagbue and The Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing are delighted to announce the third event in our strand on African Diasporic Theatre and Performance. As part of the three year AHRC –funded project ‘Beyond the Linear Narrative’
Entitled “Exotics, Visitors, Immigrants and Citizens: Africa on the British Stage” the event will feature three papers by performers, writers and practitioners followed by discussion and refreshments.

The event will be held in the seminar rooms 3/4 of the Ben Pimlott Building on March 17th at 5:30pm.

Please contact b.pester@gold.ac.uk to reserve your place

Presentations will be from

Inua Ellams – 'The 15th Tale: How the centre holds' More information about Performance poet and artist Inua Ellams can be found here: www.phaze05.com
Alex OMA-PIUS African Theatre & Culture in British Schools - Alex is the artistic director of Iroko Theatre www.irokotheatre.org.uk
Reginald Ofodile - Being an African Actor on the British Stage
Dr Dipo Agboluaje – 'It's as if I'm in Nigeria: Concerns of Writing Nigeria in the UK'

Book Review : E A Markham, Looking out, Looking in : New and Selected Poems, Anvil Press, 2009

2010-02-26T07:11:00.000-08:00

When Edward Archie Markham died in Paris on 23 March 2008, he was in the process of finalising the the contents of this volume of new and selected poems. Markham had been living in Paris since retiring from his post of Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. According to the publishers preface, Markham had submitted ‘the contents list and most of the new poems’ and was supposed to meet with his editor to make the final adjustments on his next visit to the UK.

Apparently Markham wished to make edits to some of the older poems and to add several poems from collections he felt he had under represented in the selection. In the publishers preface Peter Jay, founder and editorial director of Anvil Press admits that these are details he could not be certain of. In spite of these uncertainties however, this substantial collection is an excellent summation of one of the Caribbean's most unique and prolific voices. It is perhaps, the definitive introduction to Markham’s work.

This 252 page collection spans the years 1984 to 2003. It also includes several poems from Markham’s Human Rites: Selected Poems (1984) which covered the period 1970 to 1982. There is an essay ‘Why Do You Write’ which provides a moving epitaph and offers some psychological insight, and there is also an appendix of notes which are helpful in understanding Markham’s more obscure references. The newer poems he submitted, perhaps Markham’s last poems, are the poems that fittingly open the book.

Markham was born on the volcanic Caribbean island of Montserat on October 1, 1939, the youngest of a family of four. He attended grammar school in the capital Plymouth, before, emigrating to the UK in 1956. He read philosophy and literature at University of Wales, Lampeter, later studying 17th Century Comedy at the Universities of East Anglia and London. He worked in theatre during the late 1960s, founding the Caribbean Theatre Troupe which toured the Eastern Caribbean in 1969-70 performing Markham’s plays The Private Life of the Public Man (1970) and Dropping Out is Violence (1971)

He worked in France for two years, then in Germany, returning to the UK in 1972, when his first pamphlet of poems Crossfire was published by the Surrey based Outposts Publications. During the mid 1970s he began to publish poems under various pseudonyms: Paul St Vincent, was a young, urban Caribbean man, Pewter Stapleton, a middle aged playwright and academic, similar in all but name to Markham and Sally Goodman, a Welsh feminist. According to Markham, “She (Goodman) is Welsh, is young, is white, is blue-eyed, is blonde, is very much, in a way, like me."

In the 1980s he became itinerant again, working for the VSO for two years in Papua New Guinea, an experience beautifully recounted in his memoir, Papua New Guinea Sojourn: More Pleasures of Exile (1997). In 1988 he served as Writer in Residence at the University of Ulster in Colaraine, a position that he held until 1991 when he was appointed Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. He developed the MA in creative writing there and directed the biennial Hallam literature festival. On his retirement in 2005 he was appointed Emeritus Professor and moved to Paris, continuing to consult with students and to travel to the UK for conferences, readings and book launches.

I met Markham in 2007 when we read at Victoria and Albert Museum as part of that years Black History Month celebrations. I had first encountered his work in 1994 when I was preparing my own first collection of poems. I discovered Crossfire among the bargain bin of a Notting Hill bookshop. At first I was drawn, not to the poems - this came after - but to its aesthetics : the red card pamphlet with its stark black cover print, its off white pages. It became the physical template for my own collection. Ironically, it is to the design of this new collection that I offer any criticism; more could’ve been done with the cover design.

Approaching Markham as a Caribbean poet is problematic. As Bruno Gallo noted in his 1996 analysis of Markham's work, Markham "not only wants to write poetry; he aspires to be a poet and to act like one." Markham, like Walcott, as can be gleaned from this collection, is a product of the colonial education he received. An education in which the major literary figures included William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Blake and William Wordsworth, and, it is to these that Markham aligns himself to in his earlier work. To be ‘a poet’ for this pre-independence generation meant emulation and aesthetic absorption of the English canon, to mimic. Markham however, has managed to move beyond mere emulation and to develop his own distinctive voice as a poet, becoming a cosmopolitan, diasporic renaissance man.

Comparatively few Caribbean poets of the 1940s and 50s chose to write extensively in their ‘native tongues’. According to Gallo, Markham's reluctance to write in Caribbean dialect was "both his pride and his penalty." Having to choose between the language of the Caribbean and that of his adopted home, Markham chose the latter, accepting its political and historical connotations. One is reminded of Kamau Brathwaite in this instance, when he says, “It was in language that the slave was perhaps most successfully imprisoned by his master and it was in [the slave's] (mis-)use of [language] that [they] perhaps most effectively, rebelled.

The absence of Caribbean dialect is noticeable in Markam’s work, but only as an afterthought, and only because of a questionable expectation that such language is what ‘Caribbean’ poetry entails. And at times Markham does offer glimpses of this Caribbean-ness, as in the political poem ‘Hidiot (a polemic)’,

‘If you is big man already with stripe pon you arm, why you so

foolish?

You know them say when you grow hand too long for your own

pocket

is chop they going have to chop it off: so you not fraid?’

Still, these are rare moments in his considerable body of work, and it because of this reluctance perhaps, that Markham, though critically acclaimed, remained sadly under appreciated during his lifetime. This and a clear refusal to be pigeonholed by genre or cultural ethnicity. Ironically, ‘Hinterland’ the anthology he edited in 1990 for Bloodaxe remains the quintessential anthology of Caribbean poetry, including seminal works by Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kamau Brathwaite, James Berry, Michael Smith, Grace Nichols et al.

What I find interesting in Markham, however, apart from his reluctance to use nation language, are the clear, unobtrusive lines of his poems. They are often prosaic, especially in the more recent poems included here, and the language is both elegant and eloquent. Perhaps unlike the St Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Markham seems less interested in poetic technique and form, less of ‘how’ and more of ‘what’ the poems say. At times, this subtlety, and manipulation of the inner nuances of the English language reminds me of the late Eric Roach, a Tobagonian poet who committed suicide in 1974.

The best of his poems however, are the ones where he reinvents and subverts the language of the poem, letting the muscularity of the text come to the fore, as in the excellent ‘Grandmotherpoem’,

It heaves sense against sense cascading down the boneface

while the wet of mothermother drips into thimble: my bucket,

my ocean.

And the kite is a cloud of badness dribbling, drizzling a parable.

According to post colonial scholar Lauri Ramey, Afro-Caribbean diasporic traditions are characterised by,

‘...emphasis on family and cultural inheritance, accompanied by a sense of its dispossession; effort to create one’s own functional world in the face of migration, joined to a strong belief in integrating the individual with the sustaining community; and cultural, psychological, and linguistic alienation from one’s roots, along with a desire and need for sustained contact with deceased elders as spirit guides.’

Markham then, even in his attempts to erase identity, history and even personality from his work, remains essentially, if not a Caribbean poet, then a poet for whom the Caribbean remains essential; searching, politically restless, exploratory and imbued with an underlying sense of pathos, of experience, the work of an explorer with a world view, of a life lived. This is an ambition that many Caribbean poets, including myself, share, and this new anthology of E.A. Markham’s work is an important addition to the cannon of disaporic Caribbean literature.

Anthony Joseph

February 2010

BIO : Anthony Joseph is a poet, novelist, lecturer and musician. He was born in Trinidad, moving to the UK in 1989. His publications include Desafinado (1994), Teragaton (1997), The African Origins of UFOs (Salt, 2006) and Bird Head Son (Salt, 2009). He is a doctoral candidate at Goldsmiths College. www.anthonyjoseph.co.uk

Patience Agbabi and Bernardine Evaristo read from and talk about their work

2010-02-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

An AHRC 'Beyond the Linear Narrative' Event: Senior Common Room, Goldsmiths, University of London, Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:30:00 GMT

The Pinter Centre, as part of the 3 year AHRC funded project 'Beyond the Linear Narrative' is delighted to present the third event in our research strand 'Disrupting the Narrative:Gender, sexuality and fractured form in diasporic writing and performance.'

Two poets, Bernardine Evaristo and Patience Agbabi, will read from and talk about their work, followed by discussion and drinks.

About the poets:

Patience Agbabi is a poet and performer born in London in 1965 to Nigerian parents and spent her teenage years living in North Wales. She was educated at Oxford University and has appeared at numerous diverse venues in the UK and abroad.

R.A.W., her groundbreaking debut collection of poetry, was published in 1995, and won the 1997 Excelle Literary Award. Her poetry has been
published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Bittersweet: Contemporary Black Women's Poetry and IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black
Writing in Britain. Transformatrix, a commentary on late twentieth-century Britain and a celebration of poetic form, was published in 2000. It
received excellent reviews in publications including the Daily Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday and Poetry Review.

Her work has also appeared on television and radio. In 1998 her work was featured on Channel 4's Litpop series and she was commissioned by the BBC
to write a poem for the Blue Peter National Children's Poetry Competition in 1999.

In 2002, she obtained an MA in Creative Writing, the Arts and Education at the University of Sussex in Brighton. She has been Lecturer in Creative
Writing at several universities: the University of Greenwich (2002-2003); the University of Wales, Cardiff (2002-2004); and the University of Kent at
Canterbury (2004-2005).

Patience Agbabi lives in Gravesend, Kent. In 2004 she was named as one of the Poetry Society's 'Next Generation' poets. Her most recent collection
is Bloodshot Monochrome (2008).

Bernardine Evaristo is a British writer. She was born in Woolwich, South East London to an English mother and Nigerian father.

She is the author of the books: Hello Mum (Penguin 2010), Lara (Bloodaxe 2009), Blonde Roots (Penguin 2008), Soul Tourists (Penguin
2005), The Emperor’s Babe (Penguin 2001) and the first version of Lara (ARP 1997).

Bernardine’s novella HELLO MUM will be published by Penguin, March 4th, 2010. This book looks at teenage knife crime in the UK, told through the
voice of a 14 year old boy.

LARA was published by Bloodaxe Books on the 29th October 2009. Based on her family history, it spans 150 years, seven generations and five
countries of origin: England, Nigeria, Ireland, Germany and Brazil. Originally published in 1997, this edition has been revised and expanded
by a third.

Her first fully-prose novel BLONDE ROOTS was published by Penguin UK in August 2008. (USA 2009) It is a slavery story with a difference: Africans
enslave Europeans over a four hundred year period. The protagonist is a white woman from Europa who lives out her adult life as a slave in the
New World. Satirical, tragic, imaginative,it offers a fresh perspective on slavery. The US paperback version was published January 5th, 2010.

Disrupting the Narrative: Gender, sexuality and fractured form in diasporic writing and performance

2009-11-20T02:54:00.000-08:00

24 November 2009, 17:30 - 19:00
Goldsmiths, University of London

Second Seminar in strand as part of AHRC funded 3-year project:

Beyond the Linear Narrative:
Fractured Narratives in Writing and Performance in the Postcolonial era

We are delighted to announce the second in this seminar strand, discussing fractured form and the exploration of gender and sexuality in writing and performance.

The seminar will be chaired by professor Helen Carr, and will focus on questions of masculinity in fractured narratives, and queering the narrative.

There will be two papers followed by refreshments and discussion.

Papers delivered by our two distinguished speakers will be:

'Fractured narratives: disrupting masculinity'
by Professor Vic Seidler, Professor of Social Theory/Sociology,
Goldsmiths, University of London

&

'Queering the narrative line: queer reading as a disruptive methodology.'
by Dr. Louise Tondeur, Novelist and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing: Fiction,
Roehampton University

Places are limited, so please reserve by email: b.pester@gold.ac.uk

Anthony Joseph's 'Bird Head Son' German reading Tour Nov 2009

2009-11-05T14:29:00.000-08:00

From November 16 to 23 Anthony Joseph, one of the PhD students attached to the Pinter Centre's Fractured Narratives project will be embarking on a short reading tour of several German Universities, with a date in Austria on Nov 23. Joseph will be reading from his latest poetry collection 'Bird Head Son'.

The dates and venues are :

Nov 16 - - JENA - Rosensale, University of Jena - 20.00
Nov 17 - SIEGEN - Kultur Cafe, University of Siegen - 18.00
Nov 18 - BOCHUM - GBCF 04/514 University of Bochum - 16.00
Nov 19 - DORTMUND - Sonnendeck, University of Dortmund - 19.00
Nov 20 - MAINZ - University of Mainz - 12.00
Nov 23 - VIENNA - University of Vienna - 19.00

For more info on the book see http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844714353.htm
or www.anthonyjoseph.co,uk

Inua Ellams: Bookslam 03/09/09

2009-09-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

Ben Pester writes:

Nigerian poet, living in London, formerly of Dublin, Inua Ellams has just returned from Edinburgh where his one-man live poetry show ‘The 14th Tale’ received a Fringe First award.

He read 4 poems at last night's Book Slam (he doesn’t read, nothing is on paper, but still he calls it reading) and in all of them was something to overwhelm the audience.

Ellams’ reading style, always in motion and alive with his work, is clearly intentionally performative and resonates with the rhythm and lyricism of his words. For an audience open to listening to novelists and poets simply reading from their books or notepads, it made for a hypnotic experience.

See video below for example of ‘The 14th Tale’.

Inua’s consistently autobiographical, 1st person work hints at a fascinating engagement with the notion of ‘Self’ and place when writing along contemporary post-colonial lines.

Taken as individual works, the personal voice in all the poems read was unflinchingly, joyfully confident. The voice of a self-declared trouble maker. It instantly raised questions about the narrative of the wider work. How much of this is self-consciousness? Bravado? What does a journey like his do to the poet's self-perception?

Will know and blog more on this when I’ve read his book and seen him read more ( I hope a lot more).

In the mean time ‘The 14th Tale’ is touring throughout October/November – more info at www.phaze05.com, www.fueltheatre.com, and youtube www.moourl.com/e0hqw

Book available here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/13-Fairy-Negro-Tales-Mouthmark/dp/1905233043/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252060979&sr=8-2

Conference, 5th-7th November: Call For Papers

2009-05-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

Fractured Narratives: Pinter, Postmodernism and the Postcolonial World

Call for Papers:
The conference is scheduled to take place in the Drama Department at Goldsmiths College in New Cross, South London from Thursday 5th to Saturday 7th November 2009.

Papers are invited for the following panels:
• Narrativity in postmodern drama
• Diasporic narratives
• Terror and territory in postcolonial narratives
• Writing across generic borders
• Intercultural performance and writing
• Postcolonial aesthetics in contemporary fiction
• Postcolonial performance and the fracturing of narrative

If you have an idea for another panel that addresses issues pertinent to the themes of the conference, please email us a proposal

Please email proposals (no more than 200 words) for papers or workshops to pintercentre@gold.ac.uk

Registration fees

Full conference fee: £100
Concession fee (Equity members and students): £50

One-day ticket: £40
One-day concession ticket: £20

Conference Convenor: Professor Robert Gordon
Conference Administrator: Ben Pester

New Event!

2009-05-27T02:16:00.000-07:00

‘Berlin-London-Kampal-Minsk: Four Writers, Four Cities: Collaborative Writing for Performance’, 5pm, Friday, 5th June, Goldsmiths College, University of London

As a result of an informal conversation in 2005, four playwrights have embarked on a journey together to write a play, discovering each other’s cultures and approaches to theatre along the way. They meet in each other’s cities, talk to leading theatre makers there and explore why and how each playwright writes for performance.

‘The play’s the thing’ - but the practical question of how four established playwrights from different cultures work together puts into perspective a wider set of questions about intercultural dialogue: Why attempt it? What have they discovered? About themselves as well as the others? What connects them across their differences? And what sort of production will this literally cosmopolitan play become?

On Friday 5th June, the Harold Pinter Centre will be hosting an opportunity to find out what has been achieved so far and about the personal and practical challenges involved. Playwrights David Lindemann (winner of the Stückemarkt, Berlin Theatertreffen) and Gabriel Gbadamosi (the Pinter Centre’s AHRC Creative Fellow) together with dramaturg/administrator Terry Ezra will be talking about and reading fragments of the playwrights’ work, illustrated by video footage and photographs.

Afterwards there will be the opportunity to talk to the playwrights directly over wine and something to eat.

‘Berlin-London-Kampal-Minsk: Four Writers, Four Cities: Collaborative Writing for Performance’, 5-7pm, Friday, 5th June, Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths College, University of London. For directions, see: www.gold.ac.uk/find-us/

If you would like to attend this event or to be kept up to date with developments in the project, please mail: terryezra@hotmail.com

Upcoming Events

2009-04-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

April 29th -

Disrupting the Narrative: Gender, sexuality and fractured form in diasporic writing and performance

Seminar: Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths, University of London , Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:30:00 BST

Do non-linear narratives destablise hierarchies of power? A discussion of fractured form and the exploration of gender and sexuality in writing and performance.

Anthony Joseph on Lord Kitchener
Helen Carr on the ‘Verse Revolutionaries’
Anna Furse on ‘The Art of Memory’

This is a Pinter Centre event and is part of the Beyond the Linear Narrative project.

May 6th:

Les Murray reads from and discusses his work

Reading and Discussion: Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre, Wed, 06 May 2009 18:30:00 BST

Les Murray, widely regarded as Australia’s greatest living poet, reads from and discusses his work during a rare and brief visit to the UK.

This is a Richard Hoggart lecture series event, co-hosted by the Pinter Centre and the English and Comparative Literature Dept.

May13th:

Narratives of Home: Notions of belonging in African diasporic performance.

Presentations and Discussion: Ben Pimlott Building, Wed, 13 May 2009 17:30 BST Four presentations, followed by group discussion, focussing on the contested notion of 'Home' in diasporic writing and performance.

Speakers/Titles

Dr Sam Kasule(University of Derby) – Title: “Shifting Notions of Home, Identity and Belonging in Rose Mbowa and Kwame Kwei-Armah’

Pat Cumper (Artistic Director, Talawa Theatre Company) – Title (TBC)

Gabriel Gbadamosi (AHRC Fellow, Goldsmiths): “The Ambassador's Residence - households as strongholds of Diasporic Identity”.

May14th, 4pm, Goldsmiths, Univeristy of London: NEW ADDITION

In Association with PEN:

Tahar Ben Jelloun

Thursday May 14, 4pm

Senior Common Room

PEN and the Pinter Centre AHRC project ‘Beyond the Linear Narrative’ present:

Tahar Ben Jelloun
the Francophone Moroccan prize-winning novelist, author of This Blinding Absence of Light (2004), Racism Explained to My Daughter (1998), and now Leaving Tangier (Arcadia Books)
in conversation with Julian Evans (Chair of English PEN’s Writers in Translation Committee)

“Leaving Tangier… is a novel all the more needed for being so lucid and involving, , and a tribute to the author’s great talent that he transcends these many torn destinies and leaves the reader with a valuable sense that his characters’ lives may not have been in vain, because they have taught him something” – Julian Evans, Guardian

All welcome

One of the greatest of contemporary writers in the French language, Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Fez, Morocco in 1944. He attended a bi-lingual primary school, then a French secondary school in Tangier, and afterwards to the University of Rabat where he studied philosophy. Here, in 1966, his studies were interrupted by the repressive hand of King Hassan II: along with 94 other protesting students shot at by the police, he was sent to first one internment camp, then another. During those long eighteen months, an experience he drew on in the novel which won the IMPAC prize for 2004, This Blinding Absence of Light, he found sustenance in James Joyce. Having asked his brother for the longest book he could find, a copy of Ulysses was smuggled in to him and he discovered in its pages an inspiring ‘liberty’. It was in the camp that he wrote his first poems: several volumes were to follow.
Released, Ben Jelloun worked as a teacher of philosophy. But when the Government declared that the teaching of philosophy was to be Arabized, he decided to leave for Paris. His decision to write in French rather than Arabic was based on his sense that the French language provided a richer tradition of fiction. His novels, however, constantly bring him back to a Morocco setting. Some critics have also noted that his ‘narrative acrobatics’ find their source in Arab storytelling.
Always politically engaged, Ben Jelloun in 1984 wrote a book on racism in France – French Hospitality. In a sense this essay was brought up to date by Racism Explained to My Daughter of 1998. Where the first was much criticized; the second became a bestseller. His novel The Sand Child (1985) which probed the constraints on women living under traditional Islam through a heroine brought up by her parents as a boy, found its sequel in The Sacred Night (1987) – a book which teems with migrants, prostitutes, the imprisoned and illiterate and moves from impotence to rebellion. It won the coveted Prix Goncourt.
An exceptional and prolific novelist and essayist, Ben Jalloun thinks of himself as ‘a Moroccan writer of French expression’, Ben Jelloun after 9/11 noted that Islam is too often understood as a caricature: we tend to ‘attribute to religion the errors and fanaticism of human beings’. He now returns regularly to Tangier, the city which has for long fed his imagination.

The Many Faces of Culture- A Student Discourse

2009-04-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Sociology of Theatre & Performance Research Group’s National Interdisciplinary Colloquium for Postgraduate Students.

'Producing Culture'
20th -21st February 2009
Goldsmiths, university of london.

“From cave art to punk rock, ritual healing to cosmetic surgery, human activity is underpinned by a set of shared values, beliefs, and behaviours that are specific to, and bind, a social group. Producing Culture is a student-led colloquium for postgraduates that will explore the ways in which culture is manifested through and defined by social practice”. Stranger A.

I feel compelled to write something about this conference because;

1. It was run by fellow postgraduate students in my department, 2. The theme ‘Producing Culture’ was relevant to my area of research, and 3. The experience has made a marked impression on me.

I arrived to participate in the late morning session of the colloquium and heard two papers before breaking for lunch. The first, given by our own Anna Smith, a student in the Drama Department presented her findings on working with a group of young refugees and the difficulties they experienced with integrating into British society and how theatre was used as a tool to aid with this difficult transition.

The second paper, from a PhD fine Art student, Laura Malacart was the one that really started me thinking out side the box. Her paper, or should I say her film was titled Voicings: Undoing the English Speaking Subject, showed edited clips of what we thought were foreigners giving an account of the problems they encountered with the English language in Britain. She explained that her subjects had been fellow students in an English learning class (Laura is of Italian origin) in London and she decided to investigate the experiences of these students when they first arrived in England. She scripted/transcribed the interviews then gave them to English Actors to recite. The Brief was to memorize the lines of the script and present them without embellishing the words or creating a character, or correcting the English, all within an hour. She set up her camera, gave the Actors the script then left them for the hour, to present the script. What we saw was a manipulation, or a reclaiming of the voice of the unvoiced, heard through the mouths of those who are usually heard and never question language and its power.

My current readings on Post colonial theory came into play here in terms of finding mechanisms for re inventing and or rewriting the ‘master narrative’. I found her medium of presenting her work both artistic and intellectual.

Any idea that entertains the possibility of a duality excites me now.

Duality came in another form in Kathy Milazzo’s paper, from the University of Surrey’s department of Dance, Film and Theatre. The Black Body in Spain’s Romantic Age:Negotiations of Identity dealt with in essence the deliberate absence of the ‘Black Body’ in Spain’s Romantic art, which has been used to confirm and concretize the idea that the ‘origin’ of traditional Flamenco dances as being from European Gypsy culture and not Africa, as her research has uncovered. The depictions of ‘The Black Body’ are used only to emphasize the connection to slavery and little else. Her research lies in trying to understand where this cover up came from and to trace practically through rhythm, movement and language the true links with Africa.

Language for me was crucial in this paper in terms of choice of words to describe movements that were undeniably African in origin. The tone was decidedly derogatory and verging on the vulgar, presumably to reinforce the misguided framed knowledge of Africa during this period. What I then found even more interesting was the same choice of words being used to describe George Balanchine’s choreographic work Agon pas de deux. This paper by the co-chair Arabella Stanger looks at how the choreographer uses ‘balance’ to offset classical harmony. Balanchine was breaking the rules of a most institutionalized traditional technical principle, and ‘displayed’ the difficulty and athleticism of his ballet dancers in the 1950s of New York City. The work was highly controversial but what most traditionalists had trouble with was his use of Black dancers.

The thread of the ‘Black body’ was revisited in the performance Bf “a new choreographic work by Jorge Cresis (a fist year Spanish PhD student in the Drama department), and Freddie Opoku-Addaie,” A Ghanaian dancer.

Perhaps my recent emergence into Post Colonial texts and theory has, I am sure, influenced my gaze and I now ‘read’ performances looking for elements of Post colonialism. I asked during the post show discussion whether race was a theme they tackled in their abstract work. They answered that it was not a deliberate choice but were aware that once the visual image of a White dancer and a Black dancer are placed before an audience, historical links to colonial and Post Colonial readings would occur. Interestingly, the choreography whether conscious or not, succeeded in breaking away from stereotypes and was a constant surprise in its storytelling.

The final paper of this colloquium was from Shanu Shadhwani, the other co chair, presenting on Asian Women, Hybrid Voices and Narratives of Diaspora.

Her work was of particular interest to me because of the closeness of her area to mine. I seems to me that second generation migrants living in Britain are always engaging with their unique experience of living in and negotiating their presence in Britain.

I came away with many terms that many presenters used often in their work, which somehow created a subculture of ‘young researchers’ almost mimicking the language of the ‘text book’. “Newly arrived communities”, ‘host communities’,’ high art’, ‘cultural objects’, ‘niche cultural’, ‘memory making’,’ material culture’,’ social agents’, ‘special agency!!! The terms go on and on.

I continue to read and learn and hopefully find my own voice and identity in this multicultural landscape.

Launch Event

2009-03-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

The event was a success and an excellent way to begin our project.

Readers Robert Gordon, Blake Morrison, Ekua Ekumah, Anthony Joseph and Maura Dooley were watched and listened to by a very receptive audience in the Lecture Theatre at the Ben Pimlott building.

Next seminar will be on April 29th as outlined in the new events programme, coming soon!

BEYOND THE LINEAR NARRATIVE LAUNCH

2009-03-11T05:01:00.000-07:00

5:30pm, 25th March, in the Lecture Theatre, Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths, University of London

FREE EVENT

We are delighted to announce the launch of the Pinter Centre's new three-year research project, 'Beyond the Linear Narrative: Fractured Narratives in Writing and Performance in the Postcolonial Era'

Hosted by Professor Helen Carr, the evening will begin with an introduction to the aims of the project followed by a series of short readings by members of the research team, after which there will be a reception. The distinguished writers MAURA DOOLEY and BLAKE MORRISON, will read from their work; ROBERT GORDON will read Pinter's seldom-performed 'The Examination', and there will be readings by the two doctoral students attached to the project, ANTHONY JOSEPH and EKUA EKUMAH.
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For more information about our project, please visit our website:
www.gold.ac.uk/pinter-centre

We look forward to seeing you on March 25th, at 5:30pm.

Please RSVP to Ben Pester on b.pester[at]gold.ac.uk or pintercentre[at]gold.ac.uk

Related Event: Poet in the City

2009-03-01T10:05:00.000-08:00

Poet in the City and Goldsmiths invite you to

Gold Edged

A New Audiences event hosted by poet and writer Blake Morrison and featuring the poets Nick Drake, Bernadine Evaristo, Emily Berry and Katrina Naomi at 7.00pm on Wed 18th March 2009 in the Senior Common Room at Goldsmiths

Please email me if you wish to attend.

Blake Morrison, one of UK’s most acclaimed poets and writers, is perhaps best known for his autobiography And When Did You Last See Your Father? which was made into a film in 2007, starring Colin Firth. As well as non-fiction his work includes celebrated poetry, novels and plays. As Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths he is also active in promoting the work of new poets and writers.

Nick Drake is an acclaimed poet, novelist and screenplay writer. His first book-length collection, The Man in the White Suit, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 1999. His first novel, Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead, was published in 2006, and his most recent poetry collection, From the Word Go, was published in 2007. His film credits include a screenplay for the film Romulus, My Father.

Bernadine Evaristo is a celebrated poet and novelist. As a poet her publications include two critically acclaimed novels-in-verse: Lara and The Emperor’s Babe. Her latest novel is Blonde Roots, published in 2008. Bernardine also produces work for the theatre, radio, and for other media. She has undertaken over 50 international writers’ tours since 1997, representing the UK all over the world.

Emily Berry an exciting new poet, who was winner of the Gregory Award for poetry in 2008. Her poems have been widely published in various magazines including Poetry Review, The Rialto, Ambit, Magma and Poetry Wales. She is also a freelance copy editor and reviewer of plays, books and breakfasts. She was born and lives in London, and in 2007 completed an MA in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths.

Katrina Naomi another new poet, has won the Templar Poetry Competition and the Ledbury Festival Text Poem Contest, both in 2008. Her first poetry pamphlet, Lunch at the Elephant & Castle is published by Templar Poetry, and her poems have also appeared in many magazines including Magma, Orbis, and South. She recently completed her dissertation for an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths.

Welcome

2009-01-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

This is the Blog for the research project ‘Beyond the Linear Narrative: Fractured Narratives in Writing and Performance in the Postcolonial era’ being carried out by The Pinter Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Our project, which will run for 3 years and is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), commenced on January 12th 2009 and already has an exciting calendar of events, seminars and conferences coming up.

This Blog is to be a resource for anyone interested in the work and influence of Harold Pinter, post-colonial writing and performance, life writing and the future of the fractured narrative.

We will be updating regularly with news of the project, new events and publications and any related events or matters of interest. We welcome all (relevant) views and feedback. Please feel free to comment!

If you are interested in our project and our Blog, please sign up for RSS feeds for our regular updates.