International conferences "Contemporary British Poetry and the Long 1980s: From Deregulation to Self-Regulation"

Presentation

This conference is partly a response to Sean O’Brien’s hypothesis—formulated in 1995—on the deregulation of British poetry since the 1980s. While Margaret Thatcher proclaimed that there was no alternative (TINA) to economic liberalism and economic deregulation, poetry in Britain seems to have produced alternatives only, an increasing range of aesthetic alternatives.

Are we today still living in the wake of this 1980s aesthetic turn? Where have new poetics emerged since then? What significant formal innovations—in terms of diction, prosody or rhythm—have been produced by this “deregulation” of British poetry? Has the questioning of all forms of poetic authority and centrality led to a self-regulation of the various parts of the poetic scene? Has this in turn led to more innovation, and poetic freedom, or, on the contrary, has it created more pressure for poets to keep to their own corners of the poetry market? This two-day conference will be an attempt at addressing some of those questions.

Program

Organisation Committee

• Bastien Goursaud, membre associé au laboratoire IMAGER de l'UFR Lettres, Langues et Sciences Humaines de l'UPEC
• Juliette Utard, maîtresse de conférences en littérature américaine à Sorbonne Université
• Claire Hélie,  maîtresse de conférences en anglais à l'université Charles-de-Gaulle - Lille 3
• Elise Brault-Dreux, maîtresse de conférences à l'université de Valenciennes