2011 English Postgraduate Conference: Motion and Space

“Any person, brought into the presence of Foucault’s Pendulum, stops for a few moments and remains pensive and silent; and then generally leaves, carrying with him forever a sharper, keener sense of our incessant motion through space.” – Léon Foucault



When: Monday 23 May 2011
Keynote speaker: Professor Andrew Thacker, De Montfort University


The theme for this year's postgraduate conference is 'Space and Motion'.

The OED defines motion as:

• agitation, violent movement, excitement or perturbation;
• voluntary, practiced and regulated, or reflexive movement in a body or its parts, change of position;
• the process or course of life, time, and fate;
• a desire or inclination, a stirring of the soul, an emotion and passion;
• an application made at a court or to a judge.

We hope that this theme will encourage an exciting range of papers that address space and motion in literature throughout English.