Underscapes
Friday 9 - Sunday 11 May 2025
Hybrid Conference – in person at Gregynog Hall, Newtown, Powys, and simultaneously online
The Thirty-fifth Annual Conference
of the Association for Welsh Writing in English
Hybrid Conference – in person at Gregynog Hall, Newtown, Powys, and simultaneously online
The Thirty-fifth Annual Conference
of the Association for Welsh Writing in English
Conference Programme
The final programme and abstracts are now available:
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Conference Fees
Full weekend delegate rate: £275
Reduced weekend delegate rate: £155 (student, unwaged and low waged)
One day + single night accommodation: £150 / £85
Zoom access: £10
Reduced weekend delegate rate: £155 (student, unwaged and low waged)
One day + single night accommodation: £150 / £85
Zoom access: £10
Call for Papers
What lies beneath? From drowned villages and underwater kingdoms, to peatbogs, coal-mines and the murky depths of the subconscious, we
are troubled and intrigued by places we cannot see. Not yet defined by the OED, the term 'underscape' opens up perspectives from below.
Sometimes used in geological discourses of rocks and strata, 'underscape' can also refer to sociological realms of class, race and activism. How do the critical tools of our discipline get under the skin of a text? How do we uncover hidden worlds that have been blanketed by a canon? This call for papers invites responses to 'underscape' interpreted as widely as possible – from the figurative and imagined to the physical and actual.
Possible themes for consideration include (but are not limited to):
Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Professor Philip Gross (University of South Wales)
Dr Durre Shahwar (writer and independent scholar)
Dr Aidan Byrne (University of Wolverhampton)
Confirmed Book Launch
Honno Classic: Louisa Matilda Spooner’s Country Landlords (1860), edited and introduced by Dr Rita Singer (National Library of Wales)
are troubled and intrigued by places we cannot see. Not yet defined by the OED, the term 'underscape' opens up perspectives from below.
Sometimes used in geological discourses of rocks and strata, 'underscape' can also refer to sociological realms of class, race and activism. How do the critical tools of our discipline get under the skin of a text? How do we uncover hidden worlds that have been blanketed by a canon? This call for papers invites responses to 'underscape' interpreted as widely as possible – from the figurative and imagined to the physical and actual.
Possible themes for consideration include (but are not limited to):
- Texts and textualities, close-reading and text-mining
- Geology and science
- Deep mapping
- Extraction, mining, energy studies, climate crisis
- Critical underscapes, neglected authors, works and approaches
- Psychology and hidden selves
- Relations between languages
Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Professor Philip Gross (University of South Wales)
Dr Durre Shahwar (writer and independent scholar)
Dr Aidan Byrne (University of Wolverhampton)
Confirmed Book Launch
Honno Classic: Louisa Matilda Spooner’s Country Landlords (1860), edited and introduced by Dr Rita Singer (National Library of Wales)
Deadline
Friday 28 February 2025
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Contact
To contact the AWWE Committee with any queries or suggestions, please email [email protected]
