8 November 2013
James Machin, a doctoral student in Birkbeck's Department of English & Humanities, organized an international conference on The Weird which was held at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London. The event was supported by the Centre for Contemporary Literature.
Keynote speakers included S. T. Joshi, Roger Luckhurst and Victoria Nelson.
Until recently weird fiction, if acknowledged at all, was usually considered to be a marginal mode in the already lowly Gothic tradition – less a genre than a particular affect. In the last ten years, however, it has come to be regarded as a separate and distinct form with an increasingly important role to play in the theory of popular genre. The debate has broadened its scope to perceive and explore connections with discourses, literary traditions and cultures not previously associated with the Weird. This conference explored numerous aspects of the genre.
In addition, on Thursday 7 November, James Machin organized a Weird Reading Event at the Horse Hospital, Bloomsbury. The evening featured readings from some of the most exciting and progressive contemporary writers in the weird mode. M. John Harrison, K.J. Bishop, Hal Duncan, Helen Marshall, and Lisa L. Hannett all read from their work. In addition Robert Kingham gave a talk on Bloomsbury’s strange past and present, and there were weird sonics from The Asterism. The readings were followed by a Q&A session.
Click here to view the conference programme.
Image by Chico Iwana under a CC BY license.
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