‘The Country and the City: Rural and Urban Wales’
The Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English
Gregynog Hall 27th-29th March 2015
A country of geographical, social and cultural contrasts, Wales encompasses a wide variety of different rural and urban landscapes. From urban Cardiff and the industrial/post-industrial mining valleys of the south through the ‘green desert’ of mid-Wales to the mountains of the north, these contrasting areas are depicted in many and various ways in the literatures of Wales.
As Raymond Williams famously noted, ‘country’ and ‘city’ are ‘very powerful words’ which gather and evoke the political, cultural and emotional importance of space and place, not least in relation to notions of the nation and the national.
The conference invites contributions on any topic relating to Welsh writing in English and the country and the city, the rural and the urban. Contributions are encouraged from across disciplines, historical periods, and methodological approaches.
Conference organisers:
Professor Diana Wallace (University of South Wales)
Dr Aidan Byrne (University of Wolverhampton)
Gregynog Hall 27th-29th March 2015
A country of geographical, social and cultural contrasts, Wales encompasses a wide variety of different rural and urban landscapes. From urban Cardiff and the industrial/post-industrial mining valleys of the south through the ‘green desert’ of mid-Wales to the mountains of the north, these contrasting areas are depicted in many and various ways in the literatures of Wales.
As Raymond Williams famously noted, ‘country’ and ‘city’ are ‘very powerful words’ which gather and evoke the political, cultural and emotional importance of space and place, not least in relation to notions of the nation and the national.
The conference invites contributions on any topic relating to Welsh writing in English and the country and the city, the rural and the urban. Contributions are encouraged from across disciplines, historical periods, and methodological approaches.
Conference organisers:
Professor Diana Wallace (University of South Wales)
Dr Aidan Byrne (University of Wolverhampton)
Plenary speakers and special panel contributors
Professor Helen Fulton (University of Bristol)
‘Arthur in Caerleon: Remembering a Roman City in the Literature of Wales’
It was Geoffrey of Monmouth who first associated King Arthur with the Welsh city of Caerleon-on-Usk, deliberately alluding to the Roman heritage of Wales as the basis for Arthur’s pre-eminence. As a symbol of Wales’s Roman heritage, conveying a link with the classical world and a pre-Saxon identity, the town of Caerleon came to figure in modern Welsh writing as a key literary trope of nationalism. The aim of this paper is to explore the medieval connotations of the town of Caerleon and how these were transferred into the work of modern writers in Wales. From this case study, we can draw broader conclusions about the function of towns and cities as sites of cultural identity and memory.
Professor Christopher Meredith (University of South Wales)
‘I’r Bur Hoff Bau’
In this discussion with readings, novelist and poet Christopher Meredith will think aloud about conceptions of town, city and country as they figure in his work in both a personal and a wider historical/international context.
Special Centenary Panel: Caradoc Evans, My People (1915)
Programme-maker Dinah Jones will discuss Caradoc Evans’s My People with Prof M. Wynn Thomas (Swansea University) and Dr Mary-Ann Constantine (Aberystwyth University)
Ed Thomas
In conversation with Dr Kate Woodward (Aberystwyth University).
‘Arthur in Caerleon: Remembering a Roman City in the Literature of Wales’
It was Geoffrey of Monmouth who first associated King Arthur with the Welsh city of Caerleon-on-Usk, deliberately alluding to the Roman heritage of Wales as the basis for Arthur’s pre-eminence. As a symbol of Wales’s Roman heritage, conveying a link with the classical world and a pre-Saxon identity, the town of Caerleon came to figure in modern Welsh writing as a key literary trope of nationalism. The aim of this paper is to explore the medieval connotations of the town of Caerleon and how these were transferred into the work of modern writers in Wales. From this case study, we can draw broader conclusions about the function of towns and cities as sites of cultural identity and memory.
Professor Christopher Meredith (University of South Wales)
‘I’r Bur Hoff Bau’
In this discussion with readings, novelist and poet Christopher Meredith will think aloud about conceptions of town, city and country as they figure in his work in both a personal and a wider historical/international context.
Special Centenary Panel: Caradoc Evans, My People (1915)
Programme-maker Dinah Jones will discuss Caradoc Evans’s My People with Prof M. Wynn Thomas (Swansea University) and Dr Mary-Ann Constantine (Aberystwyth University)
Ed Thomas
In conversation with Dr Kate Woodward (Aberystwyth University).
Plenary Speaker Details
Helen Fulton is Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol. Her work crosses the border between English and Welsh literary studies, focusing on the politics and cultural production of Wales and England in the Middle Ages. She has published extensively on literary representations of urban culture, most recently in her edited collection, Urban Culture in Medieval Wales (Cardiff, 2012).
Dinah Jones is an award-winning programme maker. After many years of working for the BBC she established Silin Cyfyngedig, an independent TV & Radio production company. She recently produced ‘Caradoc Evans A’i Bobl’ for S4C to coincide with the centenary of the publication of Caradoc Evans’ controversial collection of short stories, My People.
Christopher Meredith is a novelist, poet and translator. He was born in Tredegar and lives in Brecon. In 2014 his first novel, Shifts (1988), was shortlisted for the title of 'Greatest Welsh Novel of All Time'. His most recent novel is The Book of Idiots. His most recent collection of poems is Air Histories.
Ed Thomas is a playwright, director and producer. He is co-creator, co-writer, one of four directors and Executive Producer on Hinterland/Y Gwyll, the English/Welsh detective drama (S4C, BBC Wales and BBC4). His first play House of America (1988) won numerous awards including 10 BAFTA Wales awards. His other plays include Flowers of the Dead Red Sea (1991), East from the Gantry (1993), Song from a Forgotten City (1995), Gas Station Angel (1998) and Stone City Blue (2004).
Dinah Jones is an award-winning programme maker. After many years of working for the BBC she established Silin Cyfyngedig, an independent TV & Radio production company. She recently produced ‘Caradoc Evans A’i Bobl’ for S4C to coincide with the centenary of the publication of Caradoc Evans’ controversial collection of short stories, My People.
Christopher Meredith is a novelist, poet and translator. He was born in Tredegar and lives in Brecon. In 2014 his first novel, Shifts (1988), was shortlisted for the title of 'Greatest Welsh Novel of All Time'. His most recent novel is The Book of Idiots. His most recent collection of poems is Air Histories.
Ed Thomas is a playwright, director and producer. He is co-creator, co-writer, one of four directors and Executive Producer on Hinterland/Y Gwyll, the English/Welsh detective drama (S4C, BBC Wales and BBC4). His first play House of America (1988) won numerous awards including 10 BAFTA Wales awards. His other plays include Flowers of the Dead Red Sea (1991), East from the Gantry (1993), Song from a Forgotten City (1995), Gas Station Angel (1998) and Stone City Blue (2004).
Media
The 2015 conference provided a media page, featuring photographs, videos, and Twitter feeds. Please click here to view.
Responses
- Aidan Byrne (The Plashing Vole) wrote a review of the conference on his blog and published a substantial set of conference and Gregynog photos on flickr. In the run-up to the event, be also wrote a brief response to being a conference organiser...
- Llion Wigley, Commissioning Editor for Welsh Topics at the University of Wales Press, wrote a review of the conference on the UWP blog.
- The conference used the Twitter hashtag #awwe15 for commentary during the event, and afterwards.
Documentation
Download the 2015 call for papers here:
Download the 2015 conference programme here:
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Download the 2015 booking form here:
Download the 2015 book of abstracts here:
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