Hyphenating Englishness Conference

Hyphenating Englishness:
The Welsh Presence in English Culture: 1860 - 1960

A one day conference organised by CREW
The Richard Burton Centre.

Friday, May 13th, 2011. 9.30 – 5.
Arts and Humanities Conference Room
B03 James Callaghan Building, Swansea University


While it is by now commonplace to speak of Irish-American literature and Welsh-American literature, why do we never speak of Irish-English literature and Welsh-English literature? How should we define the works produced in England but either written in Welsh or claiming to speak for Wales or about Welshness? If there is ‘Welsh writing in English’ (the term we now use for Welsh literature in the English language), is there, given the long history of Welsh settlement in England, also ‘English writing in Welsh’? And if not, why not? With the development of devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, several commentators have noted the lack of discussion of the ‘English question’. Can the study of Celtic literatures contribute to hyphenating Englishness? Can we speak of the Welsh as an immigrant and diasporic group within an English context? In which ways is the Welsh experience similar to, and distinctive from, that of other immigrant and diasporic communities in England? This one day conference engages with various forms of English-Welsh identities and hybridities in literature and asks us to consider the national contexts and canons in which we place artists, writers and literatures.


Programme

9.30 – 11.00
Daniel Williams, Welcome.

Geraint Evans, Cambrian Writing: Towards a Definition

Simon Brooks, E. Tegla Davies and ‘English writing in Welsh’

11.00 – 11.30 Coffee.

11.30 – 1.00.

Guy Cuthbertson, The Welshness of Wilfred Owen

Andrew Webb, The uses of Edward Thomas: England, Wales and Northern Ireland

1.00 – 2.00 Lunch Break.

2.00 – 3.30.
Tomos Owen, The Spectre of Wales in Victorian England: Matthew Arnold and Arthur Machen

Kirsti Bohata, What's the difference between Sarah Waters and Margiad Evans? Margiad Evans and Englishness.

3.30 – 4.00 Coffee

4.00 – 4.35 Peter Lord, Unresolved conflicts: Winifred Coombe Tennant and Welsh Identity.

4.35 – 5.00 Discussion.


Notes on Contributors.

Kirsti Bohata is Director of the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales (CREW) at Swansea University. She has published widely on Anglophone Welsh writing, including articles on the female gothic, nineteenth century women's writing, and postcolonial theory. She is currently co-editing a collection of essays on Margiad Evans to appear in 2012.

Dr Simon Brooks is a Lecturer at the School of Welsh, Cardiff University. Previous books include O dan Lygaid y Gestapo (2004) and Yr Hawl i Oroesi (2009). He is currently writing a book about multiculturalism within Welsh-language culture.

Guy Cuthbertson is a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, and has been a lecturer at Oxford and Swansea, and a teaching fellow at St Andrews. His research focuses on writers of the early twentieth century, especially Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen. With Lucy Newlyn, he is a General Editor of a six-volume edition of Edward Thomas's prose for OUP. With Lucy Newlyn, he also edited Branch-Lines: Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry (2007). And he edits the journal of the Edward Thomas Fellowship. Guy is now writing a biography of Wilfred Owen for Yale UP.

Geraint Evans teaches across traditional boundaries and combines academic study with the development of professional skills in writing and performance for radio and television. His research interests include literary modernism, the post-colonial context of Welsh writing in English and the history of the book in Britain, often with a focus on the languages and cultures of Wales and their interaction with England and international English culture. Current projects include a scholarly edition of the correspondence of David Jones and Saunders Lewis for University of Wales Press and a new edition of Edward Thomas’s only novel The Happy-Go-Lucky Morgans.

Peter Lord is a research fellow at CREW, Swansea University. As an art historian he writes about visual images from a cultural rather than an aesthetic perspective. He is the author of a three volume history of Welsh art, The Visual Culture of Wales (1998, 2000, 2003), and most recently The Meaning of Pictures: Images of Personal, Social and Political Identity (2009). In 2007 he published Winifred Coombe Tennant: A Life through Art, and his edition of the diaries of Winifred Coombe Tennant will be published in May by the National Library of Wales.

Tomos Owen has just completed his PhD on London-Welsh literary culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has published on Amy Dillwyn and The London Kelt.

Andrew Webb completed his PhD on Edward Thomas at the University of Warwick, and has published on Edward Thomas and on the idea of World Literature. He is a lecturer in English at Swansea University.


The Essential Information / Gwybodaeth Hanfodol

Conference Fee:
Free to Swansea University staff and students.

£10 for everyone else.
This does not include lunch. Food will be available in the various outlets around campus. Cheques payable to Swansea University (CREW).

Please let Daniel Williams know if you’re coming by May 5th.

Arranged by:
Daniel Williams, CREW, Swansea University (daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk)


Cynhadledd undydd a drefnwyd gan CREW
Canolfan Richard Burton.

Dydd Gwener, Mai 13, 2011. 9.30-5.
Ystafell Gynhadledd y Celfyddydau a'r Dyniaethau
Prifysgol Abertawe

Er ei fod yn gyffredin i siarad o lenyddiaeth Gwyddelig-Americanaidd neu Affro-Americanaidd, pam yr ydym byth yn siarad am lenyddiaeth Gwyddeleg-Saesneg neu lenyddiaeth Cymraeg-Saesneg? Sut ddylem ni ddiffinio gweithiau llenyddol a gynhyrchwyd yn Lloegr ond a ysgrifennwyd yn Gymraeg? Os oes 'Llên Saesneg Cymru' (term rydym bellach yn ei ddefnyddio ar gyfer llenyddiaeth Gymreig yn yr iaith Saesneg), a oes, o ystyried hanes hir y Cymry yn Lloegr, hefyd 'Llên Gymraeg Lloegr'? Ac os nad oes, pam? Gyda datblygiad datganoli yn yr Alban, Cymru a Gogledd Iwerddon, mae nifer o sylwebyddion wedi nodi diffyg trafodaeth ar y 'cwestiwn Saesnig'. A all yr astudiaeth o lenyddiaethau Celtaidd gyfrannu at ddad-elfennu Seisnigrwydd? Allwn ni siarad am y Cymry fel grŵp o fewnfudwr yn y cyd-destun Saesnig? Ym mha ffyrdd y mae’r profiad Cymreig yn Lloegr yn debyg i, ac yn wahanol i, brofiadau cymunedau o fewnfudwyr eraill yn Lloegr? Mae’r gynhadledd undydd hon yn gofyn i ni ystyried y cyd-destunau cenedlaethol yr ydym yn eu defnyddio wrth drin llenyddiaeth a chelf.


Y wybodaeth Hanfodol

Pris y Gynhadledd:
Am ddim i staff a myfyrwyr Prifysgol Abertawe

£ 10 i bawb arall.
Nid yw hyn yn cynnwys cinio. Bydd bwyd ar gael yn y siopau amrywiol o gwmpas y campws. Sieciau yn daladwy i Brifysgol Abertawe (CREW).

Rhowch wybod i Daniel Williams os ydych yn dod, erbyn Mai 5ed.

Trefnwyd gan:
Daniel Williams, CREW, Prifysgol Abertawe (daniel.g.williams @ swansea.ac.uk)