Our Events
The Centre for Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck regularly hosts leading conferences, symposia and research workshops relating to all aspects of contemporary literature, culture and theoretical approaches.
We try to record as many of our events as possible. Since 2020 we have uploaded video recordings of CCL events on our YouTube channel.
Forthcoming Events:
- 4-5 November 2022: Transitions 10: Mapping New Directions in Comics Studies (Conference)
- May 2023: Incomparable Poetry: Reading with Dr Robert Kiely
Past Events have included:
- 8-9 October 2022: SF & Extraction (6th Annual LSFRC Conference)
- 4 July 2022: Futurisms in Contemporary Turkey
- 22 June 2022: The Progressive Fantastic in Germany
- 22 June 2022: Migration & Documentality: Collaborative Thinking and Social Justice
- 19 May 2022: Writers Rebel on Hope and Climate Activism
- 15 October 2021: "Fifth Cinema": Theorising Refugee-Led Filmmaking
- 1 October 2021: Brown Girl Like Me: A Reading and Q and A with Jaspreet Kaur
- 9-11 September 2021: Activism and Resistance (5th Annual LSFRC Conference)
- 26 May 2021: Decolonizing the University
- 13 & 20 May 2021: Interactive Narrative Workshop with Dr Alan Trotter & Dr Mark Blacklock
- 18 May 2021: Writing, Rights and Literature
- 11 May 2021: Hannah Lowe in Conversation
- 7 May 2021: In Conversation: Jeremy Atherton Lin with Katherine Angel
- 28 April 2021: Aliens, Vampires, Surrogates: Revolutionising the Gestational Workplace
- 8-10 April 2021: Transitions 9: Mapping New Directions in Comics Studies (Conference)
- 1 March 2021: LRB Book Launch, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again
- 26 February 2021: MIRLive featuring Femi Kayode & guests
- 26 February 2021: In Conversation with Jaspreet Kaur
- 29 January 2021: Becoming Utopian Roundtable
- 24 November 2020: Radical Attention Book Launch
- 16 November 2020: Tade Thompson Q&A
- 29 October 2020: Writing Shame
- 16 October 2020: Caryl Phillips Lecture
- 11-12 September 2020: Beyond Borders: Empires, Bodies, Science Fictions (4th Annual LSFRC Conference)
- 1 June 2020: Upstaging Ireland: The Theatre of Flann O'Brien
- 27 May 2020: The New Audacity
- 12-14 September 2019: Productive Futures: The Political Economy of Science Fiction (3rd Annual LSFRC Conference)
- 20 June 2019: The Perverse Universals of the Microeconomic Mode
- 22 May 2019: Terminal Documents: Re-Reading the Non-Fiction of J.G. Ballard
- 21 May 2019: Irish Times: Myles na gCopaleen's Cruiskeen Lawn
- 10 November 2018: Transitions 8: Mapping New Directions in Comics Studies (Conference)
- 31 October 2018: Booker Prize Reading and Q&A with Mohsin Hamid
- 14-15 September 2018: Sublime Cognition: Science Fiction & Metaphysics (2nd Annual LSFRC Conference)
- 1 September 2018: Utopian Acts (Conference)
- 25 November 2017: Ruin and Rebuild: Exhibition of Urban Dereliction
- 27 November 2017: Booker Prize Reading and Q&A with Julian Barnes
- 21 September 2017: Waste: A Symposium, Papers on Disposability, Decay, and Depletion
- 16 September 2017: Organic Systems: Environments, Bodies and Cultures in Science Fiction (1st Annual LSFRC Conference)
- 10 June 2017: Child Be Strange: A Symposium on Penda's Fen
- 26 May 2017: Dystopia Now Conference
- 16 May 2017: What Goes Around: Fifty Years of The Third Policeman
- 18 May 2017: He Doesn’t Talk Politics Anymore
- 17 May 2017: Will 2017 be 1984?
- 16 May 2017: The Contemporary: An Exhibition
- 16 May 2017: A Country Road, A Tree
- 10 April 2017: David Brin at Birkbeck
- 2 March 2017: The Limits of Estrangement Panel Discussion
- 25 January 2017: Eimear McBride in Conversation with Jacqueline Rose
- 19 November 2016: Transitions 7: Mapping New Directions in Comics Studies (Conference)
- 1 July 2016: True Crime Fictions Conference
- 28 June 2016: Coming of Age Stories: Now and Then
- 8 June 2016: Prize Culture & Contemporary Publishing
- 20 May 2016: You Must Mutate: the Future of Fiction
- 18 May 2016: Max Porter in Conversation
- 18 May 2016: The Contemporary: An Exhibition
- 17 May 2016: Remembering Flann O'Brien
- 11 May 2016: Comics Studies: Beyond the Canon?
- 23 October 2015: Living, Thinking, Looking: An International Conference on the Writing of Siri Hustvedt
- 3 July 2015: Action Writing: The Politics of US Literature, 1960 to the Present
- 21 May 2015: Historical Fictions
- 18 May 2015: Environmental Futures: Oil, Ecology, Petrocultures
- 6-7 March 2015: Stage the Future: The 2nd Annual Science Fiction Theatre Conference
- 7 February 2015: Supposedly Fun Things: A Colloquium on the Writing of David Foster Wallace
- 15 December 2014: Booker Prize Reading and Q&A with Hilary Mantel
- 22 November 2014: Rupture, Crisis, Transformation: New Directions in US Studies at the End of the American Century
- 25 October 2014: Transitions 5: Mapping New Directions in Comics Studies (Conference)
- 11 July 2014: Colours of Memory: An International Conference on the Writing of Geoff Dyer
- 20 June 2014: Transmission: Hari Kunzru Workshop and Conversation
- 30 May 2014: Flying: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Kate Millett
- 12 May 2014: Stranger Than Fiction: An Evening with Travis Elborough
- 26-27 April 2014: Stage the Future: The First Conference on Science Fiction Theatre
- 21-22 March 2014: Invisible Circus: An International Conference on the work of Jennifer Egan
- 27 November 2013: Booker Prize Reading and Q&A with Alan Hollinghurst
- 8 November 2013: The Weird: Fugitive Fictions/Hybrid Genres
- 2 November 2013: Transitions 4: Mapping New Directions in Comic Studies
- 25 October 2013: Contemporary Narratives of Care
- 7 September 2013: le Carré's People: Celebrating 50 Years of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
- 5 June 2013: Invocations of Modernism: Q&A with Will Self
- 20 May 2013: Science and Writing Symposium
- 3 March 2013: Symposium on Iraq War Culture
- 7 November 2012: Booker Prize Reading and Q&A with Kazuo Ishiguro
- 3 November 2012: Transitions 3: Symposium on New Directions in Comics Studies
- 14/15 September 2012: Weird Council: International Conference on the Writing of China Miéville
- 6 July 2012: Weather Reports – A Symposium on the work of Steven Connor
- 20 June 2012: Creative Writing Today
- 6 June 2012: Josh Cohen: Privacy and the Wish to Sleep
- 11/12 May 2012: 21st-Century British Fiction: a two-day symposium
- 9 March 2012: WAR-NET meeting on the representation of war up to and including Iraq
- 14 November 2011: Booker Prize Reading and Q&A with Sarah Waters
- 23 July 2011: Calling all Agents: a day symposium on the work of Tom McCarthy
- 10 July 2010: Occasional Music: a day symposium on the work of Jonathan Lethem
- May 2009: After the War: a two-day conference
- 22 May 2009: Money Talks: symposium on Martin Amis’s Money
- April 2008: Narratives in Transition: a two-day conference
