19th Oct 2011 4:30pm-5:30pm
C122 Lecture Theatre, Checkland Building, Falmer
'In It for the Long-Haul: Margaret Atwood, Sustainability, Managing the Writing Energy, and Me'
Prof Gina Wisker
Head of the CLT
University of Brighton
This is a talk in two parts. The first part looks fairly straightforwardly at Toronto based Margaret Atwood's enduring theme of sustainability, ecology, and avoidance of apocalypse. In so doing it explores her work, taking a path from the eco feminist 'surfacing' in the 1970s - quickly mentioning female spite and vampires in Cats Eye and the Robber Bride - to the 1990s and lands on her end of the world sustainability and ecology sci-fi novels, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. It argues that with her engagement in such crucial issues she enables us as readers to engage our own value systems and care about the characters, about writing and the world.
The second part is more reflective and might be useful for researchers and writers because it is about writing for publication and explores Prof Gina Wisker's own long-haul research journey, working with teaching and latterly writing about her work and getting it published.
Bio
Prof Gina Wisker researches and publishes on women's, Gothic, postcolonial and creative writing, on the one hand, and postgraduate student learning and supervisory practices, on the other. Active in the Staff and Educational Development Association, she has run workshops and given keynotes at a number of learning and teaching conferences in Australasia, South Africa, Sweden, Singapore and Ireland, as well as for the British Council in Saudi Arabia.
