Beckett at Reading – 50th Anniversary

Beckett at Reading 50th Anniversary
Celebrating the Beckett Exhibition of 1971
Organised by the Beckett International Foundation and the Beckett Research Centre
Minghella Studios, University of Reading, 4-5 November 2022

Friday 4 November 2022
13.30-14.15 Coffee and Registration

14.15-14.30 Opening Words

14.30-15.15 The Billie Whitelaw and Katharine Worth Collections
(Jonathan Heron and Matthew McFrederick)

15.15-16.00 Academic Projects I: Staging Beckett (Anna McMullan and Trish McTighe) and Beckett’s Doodles (Jonathan Bignell and Bill Prosser)

15.45-16.15 Coffee Break

16.15–17.15 Three Dialogues: The Beckett Archive (TBC)

17.15-18.00 Barry McGovern: The Archive – ‘it’s another of my resources’

[Break]

19.15-20.30 Beckett Fellowship Premiere: Hannah Khalil’s ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Son’ (followed by a Q&A with Hannah Khalil and Maureen Beattie)

20.30-21.30 Wine Reception and Launch of the Mary Bryden Collection

Saturday 5 November 2022
12.30-13.00 Coffee and Registration

13.00-14.15 Company
Trinity College Dublin (Julie Bates with Creative Fellows)
The Beckett Circle of Japan (recording)
The Beckett Society (Laura Salisbury)
The Happy Days Beckett Festival (Sean Doran)

14.15-15.00 Academic Projects II: Beckett Digital Manuscript Project (Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon) / The Samuel Beckett Letters Project (recording)

15.00-15.30 Coffee Break

15.30-16.00 The Beckett Archive through the Years (Anna McMullan / Mark Nixon) A Message from Berlin (Walter Asmus; recording)

16.00-17.30 Roundtable: Beckett Studies
(Chair: Trish McTighe; Participants: Daniela Caselli, William Davies, Hannah Simpson, Katherine Weiss, Shane Weller)

[Break]

19.00-20.00 The Knowlson-Beckett Interview Tapes (James Knowlson)

20.00-21.00 Closing Remarks and Wine Reception

Exhibitions

‘Let us do something, while we have the chance.’ The Origins of Reading’s Samuel Beckett Collection, University of Reading Library, University of Reading, 27 September 2022 – 13 January 2023: https://tinyurl.com/origins-of-Beckett-at-Reading

‘A glimpse of the surface’: Samuel Beckett and Avigdor Arikha, The Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, 4 October 2022 – 27 January 2023: https://tinyurl.com/Beckett-and-Arikha

Registration: https://tinyurl.com/Beckett-at-Reading-50

Donations: https://tinyurl.com/donate-to-Beckett-at-Reading
Please support the activities of the Beckett International Foundation and the Beckett Research Centre by giving as much or as little as you can! Thank you.

If you have any queries, please contact Mark Nixon (m.nixon@reading.ac.uk)