Events
These are just some of the events that formed part of the Doris Lessing 100 centenary celebrations at UEA.
21 January 2020 - A Cinema City screening of 'Memoirs of a Survivor' Venue: Cinema City, St Andrew's Street, Norwich - UEA was pleased to present a rare screening of the 1981 dystopian classic at Cinema City in Norwich, with an introduction by UEA lecturer Iain Robinson. The film was preceded by footage from the East Anglian Film Archive, of Rouen Road being transformed into a post-apocalyptic landscape for the making of the movie.
Fri 22 Nov 2019 - Lessing in the Library: Norwich Millennium Library - This free evening event focused on the genesis of Lessing's most famous work, The Golden Notebook. First published in 1962. Students from our Unboxed programme created a display of creative responses to the Doris Lessing exhibition. Display continues until 30 Nov in the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library Foyer.
Thur 7 Nov 2019 / 1.15-1.45pm / On Doris Lessing’s celebrated novel The Golden Notebook. Nonia Williams, Lecturer in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at UEA gave a lunchtime talk, focussing on Lessing most famous novel.
Thur 31 Oct 2019 / 1.15-1.45pm / Lessing, Communism and the New Left. Dr Matthew Taunton, Senior Lecturer in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at UEA gave a lunchtime talk, focussing on Lessing involvement in politics.
Sat 26 Oct 2019 - Doris Lessing 100: Women Writers in Conversation - Rachel Cusk, Professor Lara Feigel and Emma Claire Sweeney joined Dr Nonia Williams to read from their own work and discuss Lessing's lasting influence. Doris Lessing was born on 22 Oct 1919. Her career spanned many of the most significant events of the twentieth century and she produced work in a wide variety of forms and genres. A hundred years almost to the day after Lessing's birth, this event brings together a panel of contemporary women writers to discuss her work and her legacy.
Thur 19 Sep 2019 / 1.15-1.45pm / Justine Mann, Archivist, British Archive for Contemporary Writing at UEA led a tour of the Doris Lessing 100 exhibition, reflecting on her curation of the exhibition and her work with Lessing's archive.
Thur 12 - 14 Sep 2019 Launch:
- Margaret Drabble in Conversation. Lessing's close friend, in conversation with Professor Roberta Rubenstein and UEA Professor Christopher Bigsby 19:45/ Doors 19:00 / Exhibition: 21:00-22:00 / Entry included in conference booking. 12 Sep 2019.
- Doris Lessing at 100: The Writer's Quest - Academic Conference. Programme including abstracts and biographies of contributors click here for PDF. [The conference took place 12-14 Sep 2019]
Doris Lessing at 100: The Writer's Quest - Conference Programme
click here for PDF which includes abstracts and biographies of speakers
· Cristina Gamberi (University of Bologna) - ‘Doris Lessing’s Life Narratives. A Gender and Postcolonial Reading’
· Emma Parker (University of Leeds)- ‘Doris Lessing: Life Writing After Empire’
· Linda Weinhouse (Community College of Baltimore County) - ‘The Curious Case of Alfred and Emily – A Revisionist Look at World War I Nursing’
· Rosario Arias (University of Málaga)- ‘Re-orienting Doris Lessing towards the Anthropocene’
· Soghra Azari (Affiliation TBC) - ‘The Emancipation of women in Canopus in Argos’
· Matthew Martinez (Birkbeck, University of London) - ‘The Transformative Potential of Doris Lessing’s Space Fiction’
· James Arnett (University of Tennessee-Chattanooga) - ‘Doris Lessing and her African Archives’
· Jacob Rollinson (UEA) - ‘Triviality, materiality and synchronicity in the Lessing Archive’
· Paul Schlueter (Independent) - ‘My Fifty Years of Friendship with Lessing’
· Anne-Laure Brevet (Cambridge / Independent) - ‘The reflexive mind in Doris Lessing’s "Landlocked" poem (1946) and novel (1965)’
· Mahmudul Hasan (International Islamic University Malaysia) - ‘Lessing’s Theory of Literature: A Study of The Small Personal Voice’
· Mark Taylor (National Research University, Moscow) - ‘Ideas Flow Through Our Minds Like Water: Doris Lessing and Telepathy’
There is public access to the Doris Lessing 100 exhibition from 21:00-22:00 on Thu 12 Sep but it may be busy. Note that a special conference tour of the archive takes place on Friday before the conference dinner with the exhibition's curators. You will also be able to visit the exhibition at any point during the conference weekend Fri/Sat/Sun by wearing your exhibition sticker.
· Cornelius Collins (Fordham University) - ‘Irony as an Ethical Stance in the Work of Doris Lessing’
· Philip Tsang (University of Cincinnati)- ‘Citizens of That Other Country: Doris Lessing and Late Realism’
· Robin Visel (Furman University)- ‘Lessing Criticism in North America: A Semicentennial Reappraisal’
· Matti Ron (UEA) - ‘Doris Lessing’s Problem With Proletarians’
· Henry Stead (University of St Andrews) - ‘Comrade Doris: Lessing’s correspondence with the Foreign Commission of Soviet Writers in the 1950s’
· Matthew Taunton (UEA) - ‘Doris Lessing and the Language of Communism’
Nick Hubble (Brunel University London) ‘“The Ordinariness of the Extraordinary?”: The Proletarian Fantastic in Lessing’s Fiction of Social Change’
· Justine Mann (UEA Archives) - ‘”Oh academics”: Lessing's resistance to categorisation in her letters at UEA’
· Lisa Pulsifer (Harry Ransom Center)- ‘I can read this, can you?: The Doris Lessing Archive at the Harry Ransom Center’
· Pamela Thurschwell (University of Sussex) - ‘Falling in Love with Everyone: Lessing’s Letters to Smithie at the Keep, University of Sussex’
· Daria Forlenza (Independent) - ‘Doris Lessing’s work between fiction and journalism: the case of The Grass is Singing’
· Gizem Koçak (Bilkent University)- ‘Lessing’s Literary World: Intersections Between Different Genres’
· Selcuk Senturk (University of Leicester) - ‘Rebalancing the Human Relationships in Lessing’s Fiction: From Independent Women to Dependent Men’
· Nile Green (University of California, Los Angeles) - ‘The Afghan from Shangri-La: Doris Lessing’s Sufi Mentor’
· Sun Hwa Park (Konkuk Univeristy, South Korea) - ‘Sufism and Lessing's Religious Vision in The Memoirs of a Survivor’
· Robert Twigger (Independent) - ‘Doris Lessing and her teacher Idries Shah’
· Carmen García-Navarro (Universidad de Almería) - ‘Exploring Ageing with Doris Lessing: an experience in Higher Education’
· Swaty Mitra (Barasat Government College, Kolkata) - ‘Morphed Stories: A Re-reading of The Diaries of Jane Somers and Love, Again’
· Nonia Williams (UEA) - ‘The Textures and Textualities of Ageing’
Roberta Rubenstein (American University, Washington) ‘Doris Lessing's Speculative Histories of Futures Past’
· Duncan Large (UEA) - ‘Lessing in Translation: Towards an International Reception History’
· Alberto Lazaro Lafuente (Universidad de Alcalá) - ‘The Reception in Spain of Doris Lessing’s Views on the Female Experience’
· Emma-Louise Jay (La Colegiatura Colombiana, Colombia) - ‘Mistresses and Servants: Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing from an acculturated Colombian perspective’
· Kanae Sekino (University of Leeds)- ‘Home-making and Women’s Work in Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist’
· Fiona Tolan (Liverpool John Moores University) - ‘The Politics of Cleaning in Doris Lessing’s Fiction: The Diary of a Good Neighbour and The Good Terrorist’
· Arwa Al-Mubaddel (Cardiff University)- ‘Metamodern Oscillation in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook’
· Tamara Sampey-Jawad (Independent) - Writing the road to freedom: a Marxist feminist analysis of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook'
· Sandra Singer (The University of Guelph) - A Look into Lessing’s Legacy: Comparing The Golden Notebook and Sarah Henstra’s The Red Word'
· Claire Hanson (University of Southampton) - ‘Lessing, Whitehead and the Posthuman: Canopus in Argos’
· Alice Ridout (Algoma University)- ‘Doris Lessing’s The Summer Before the Dark: Eco-anxiety, Solastalgia, and Wellness in the End Times’
· Susan Watkins (Leeds Beckett University) - ‘The Chthulucene, the Posthuman and Apocalyptic Time in Doris Lessing’s “Ifrik” Novels’
· Elizabeth Jackson (University of the West Indies) - ‘Doris Lessing and Cosmopolitanism’
· Pat Louw (University of Zululand)- ‘Layered Colonialism: the Afrikaner in Doris Lessing’s African Stories’
· Josna Rege (Worcester State University) - ‘Corrective Exile: Mapping Migration and Displacement in Doris Lessing’s Oeuvre’