Open Graves, Open Minds

Yet another great looking conference on Roald Dahl–an author whose work is very relevant to OGOM’s concerns with fantastic narratives.

I didn’t spot this and the deadline is approaching: 31 January. There may still be time if you’re quick enough.

THIS interdisciplinary international conference, held in the city of Roald Dahl’s birth and childhood in his centenary year, will give further impetus to the substantial critical attention devoted to the author’s work by seeking new ways of understanding his achievement and place in twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture, broadly considered. The emphasis will be on defamiliarizing Dahl in the very act of bringing him ‘home’. Dahl’s work for children and young adults will, naturally, receive robust attention; innovative crossdisciplinary approaches that encounter his writing through the lens of (for example) illustration, adaptation and performance are particularly welcome. Dahl’s output for adult readers will also be a key focus, as will the need to resist the compartmentalization that sees his books for adults and children as separate imaginative entities. The conference will also consider Dahl’s interventions in other disciplines, from education to medicine, together with his manifold, influential legacies (both enabling and contentious). Discussions of Dahl’s various locations of culture, from Wales to Washington, Tanganyika to Buckinghamshire, Norway to New York, are also sought. The conference will offer opportunities for delegates to visit the places of Dahl’s youth, to examine manuscript and visual material from the archive at Great Missenden, and to enjoy dramatic readings and performances of Dahl’s work.