Leavis at York 2013: an international conference

A conference of presentations and discussions about the life, thought and work of the English critic and educationalist F. R. Leavis (1895–1978) and the continuing influence of these on contemporary debate.

The conference will run over two days:

6.00pm-9.00pm, Friday 18th October 2013

9.30am-5.00pm, Saturday 19th October 2013

The second ‘Leavis at York’ international conference is organised by the Leavis Society in conjunction with the Centre for Modern Studies.  The conference will complement the celebrations marking the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the University.

Leavis had a productive association with York during the 1960s and 70s, not long after the University’s inception, having been invited there by J. P. Brockbank, the first Head of the Department of English and Related Literature.  The Department continues to administer the F. R. Leavis Fund which supports research activities of its students and staff, and the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University houses the Leavis-Brockbank letters. 

The broad theme of the conference will be Leavis’s thought and work during the period of his association with York (1965-77). During this period Leavis issued a number of important books, essays and addresses, marking a new phase in his literary, social and educational thought. The period was also one of remarkable change and ferment in higher education and society globally, opening up creative processes, tensions and faultlines that continue to this day.

Confirmed speakers to date include:

Friday 18 October 

• Inaugural Speaker: Christopher Ricks (Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University and Visiting Professor, New College of the Humanities, London), ‘A conflict of reports’. 

Saturday 19 October 

• Keynote Speaker: Professor Richard Wilson (Sir Peter Hall Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Kingston University), ‘Leavis and the Theatre’. 
• Ian Robinson (author of The English Prophets (Edgeways, 2001)), ‘Leavisian thought’.
• Dr Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (University of Hertfordshire and President of the British Wittgenstein Society), ‘Leavis, Harrison, Wittgenstein: literature and the enactment of the ethical’.
• Professor Jeremy Tambling (University of Manchester), ‘Leavis and Dickens’.
• Dr Richard Storer (Leeds Trinity University, and author of F. R. Leavis (Routledge, 2009)),on recent studies of Leavis as a teacher.
• Professor Michael Bell (Warwick University, and author of F. R. Leavis (Routledge, 1988)), ‘Creativity in the teaching of F. R. Leavis’.

The event will also mark the first public meeting of the Leavis Society, to be held on campus on Friday 18 October at 4.00pm.

The conference programme will be posted at http://leavisatyork2013.wordpress.com.  For all queries about the conference programme please contact Dr Steven Cranfield at s.cranfield@westminster.ac.uk.

Membership and subscription details of the Society are available from the Administrator, Glenys Willars, at glenyswillars@sky.com. Benefits will include reduced conference fee and selected books at discounted prices.

A limited number of rooms on campus for overnight accommodation on Friday and Saturday may be available in Franklin House on campus.  For information about availability and to make a booking information see the York Conferences website.  

The 2010 conference programme can be viewed on the Centre for Modern Studies website.