Brian Moore in Context
Zoom conference hosted by the University of Exeter
Sessions will take place via Zoom from 2.30-5.15pm (local time) on 21, 22 and 23 April 2021. Evening events (6pm local time), such as a film screening and plenary discussion, are also in the works.
Each session will be of 75 minutes’ duration and will run from 2.30-3.45pm and from 4.00-5.15pm. Individual papers should be of no more than 10 minutes’ duration.
To apply, please submit paper abstracts of 200 words or panel/roundtable proposals of no more than 500 words, plus a bio note of no more than 100 words, to BrianMooreAt100[at]gmail.com by 26th February 2021.
––––
Organised to coincide with the centenary of his birth, this conference seeks to critically (re)appraise the work of Belfast-born writer, Brian Moore (1921-1999). The aim of the conference is to put Moore’s work in conversation with a series of historical, intellectual, literary and institutional contexts. We invite proposals for papers, pre-formed panels and roundtable discussions that situate Moore in relation to one or more of the following contexts (the below is not an exhaustive list):
- Reading Moore in relation to his Irish and non-Irish contemporaries, including but not limited to: Maeve Brennan, the Field Day intellectuals, Mavis Gallant, Benedict Kiely, Aidan Higgins, Mary Lavin, Janet McNeill, Iris Murdoch, Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth.
- Irish Canadian writing before and after Moore.
- The rise of Creative Writing as an academic discipline.
- Historical contexts important to Moore’s work, including but not limited to: World War II; the Northern Irish “Troubles”; Second Wave Feminism; Vatican II and other shifts within the Catholic Church; the Cold War.
- Moore and the magazines: fiction and non-fiction.
- Moore, his editors and other collaborations.
- Intertextuality: from James Clarence Mangan’s “My Dark Rosaleen” to Wallace Stevens’s “The Emperor of Ice-Cream,” how might Moore’s conversations with other writers be explored through the intertextuality of his work?
- Recent and emerging methodologies and critical paradigms, including but not limited to: the rise and rise of migration and diaspora studies, particularly in an Irish Studies context; democratising trends that would now regard Moore’s “pulp” novels as an essential (rather than an anomalous) part of his oeuvre; adaptation studies; the “material turn” in literary studies which places greater emphasis on unpublished writings and archival materials; the politics of prize-giving and the literary marketplace.
- Underexplored aspects of Moore’s work, such as his short stories, pulp novels and screenplays.
- Moore’s regions, cities and places.
- Moore and his many genres: magical realism, historical fiction, thrillers and social realism.