Conference Programme

Scroll to see the full programme!

Panel A: Wordplay Chair: Christopher O’Hara Eleanor Mitchell (University of St Andrews): “the play’s the thing”: Woolf’s Playful Writing Practices Valery Goutorova (University of St Andrews): Pleasure in Wordplay: Queer Desire in the Letters of Virginia Woolf Emma Gommis (University of Cambridge): Critical Laughter: The Use of Puns and Parody in Contemporary Women’s Experimental Art Writing Panel B: Form Chair: Connor McGrath Aleksandra Violana (University of Cambridge): Playing with Transparency Honor Hamlet (University of St Andrews): A Dildo Cast from Life: Bleak and Violent Pleasures Laura Greene (University of St Andrews): Idealist Aesthetics in George Eliot’s “A College Breakfast Party” and “The Legend of Jubal”
Panel A: Art & Materiality Chair: Lauren Robbins Vicky Panossian (University of Warwick): Play and Vulnerability as Migrant Activism: The Case of Little Amal Luke Ford (The New School): Walt and Walter: Disney, Benjamin, and the Total Work of Art Hemdat Kislev (University of St Andrews): Playfulness and the Pleasure of Failing in Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades Panel B: Performance & Transgression Chair: Valery Goutorova Taylor Jeoffroy (University of Dundee): “Playing” with Gender in Early Restoration Comedy: Non-Binary Language and Queer Pleasure Connor Johnston (University of Cambridge): Queer Masochism and Agency in The Well of Loneliness and Beyond Michela Esposito (University of St Andrews): Safeword ‘Blitz’: Elizabeth Bowen’s Kink
Panel A: Female Desires Chair: Laura Greene Andreea Moise (University of Bucharest): “A Blue Like No One Else’s”: The Erotics of Mourning and s/Sapphic Affect in Ali Smith’s Artful Nicole Sellew (University of St Andrews): This is Pleasure: Gender and Desire in Contemporary Autofiction Phoebe Macindoe (University of St Andrews): The Love-Hypothesis Hypothesis Panel B: Games & Gaming Chair: Amy H. Ahn Oded Feuerstein (Tel Aviv University) : Should Imperialism be Pleasurable? The Complicated Politics of Historical Gaming Dylan Chng (University of Cambridge): Playing at Be(Com)ing: Metanarrative Autofiction in Dimension 20's Neverafter (2022-2023) Léa Lecocq (University of Cambridge): Playing Against the Rules: The Subversion of Interactive Storytelling in The Stanley Parable
Keynote Lecture
Panel A: Mediascapes Chair: Zehra Kazmi Christopher O’Hara (University of St Andrews): “If you catch it, can you kill it?”: Pleasure in Sacrifice from Acéphale to Z'EV; or, Trance and Fugue: The Anti-Capitalist Joy of Wasted Time and Wasted Bodies Leila Dara (University of Exeter): BORIS BOP: Unpacking Political Satire Music Videos Laurisa Sastoque (University of Cambridge): “This AI will heat up any club”: Reggaetón Music on the TikTok Platform and the Rise of the Cyborg Genre Panel B: Subversive Play Chair: Nilanjana Goswami Mishael Knight (University of Cambridge): Play in Utopia, Play as Utopia Salma Yassine (University of Exeter): The Role of Colloquial Arabic in Mediating Pain, Power, and Pleasure in Queer Sexual BDSM Sarah Jean Abernethy (University of Cambridge) : Becoming Lady Happy: Reading as Escapist Embodiment & Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure
Panel A: Body & Sexuality Chair: Nilanjana Goswami Annabel Crawshaw-Brown (University of St Andrews): Sex and Social Status in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Roisin Neenan (University of St Andrews): Oral Play and (Dis)pleasure in Algernon Charles Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads Milo Farragher-Hanks (University of St Andrews): ‘Never Get Away With That In Hollywood’: The Ecstasy of Hedy Lamarr Panel B: Playful Poetics Chair: Lucy Turton Abigail McCabe (University of Massachusetts) : Play and Anthropocene Narrative in Alice Oswald’s Dart Sam Hickford (University of St Andrews): John Clare and John Burnside: play as polemic Connor McGrath (University of St Andrews): The Image of the Hawk in the poetry of Thom Gunn, Ted Hughes, and Seamus Heaney

Cookie preferences