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This podcast focuses on the use of the term avant-garde in discourse around contemporary art, and particularly on how its application differs with locale. Panelist Nancy Adajania argues that our mythologizing of the idea removes us from its lingering potential.

The Avant-garde as Term and Idea

For nearly 50 years, the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch wrote prolifically, establishing herself as one of the great British fiction writers of the twentieth century. Novelists A.S. Byatt, Bidisha and Philip Hensher, all of them powerfully influenced by Iris Murdoch, reconsider her standing as a writer. Chaired by Anne Chisholm.

Iris Murdoch Revisited (A.S. Byatt, Bidisha, Philip Hensher)

THE HAWTHORNDEN LECTURE

In 1948, the novelist and poet Jack Kerouac coined the name 'Beat Generation' for an underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York. In the decade that followed, works such as Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg's Howl and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (the last two sparkling obscenity trials that ultimately revolutionised American publishing) formed a distinct 'Beat' literature. Iain Sinclair has been described by the Daily Telegraph as 'one of our most dazzling stylists', and American Smoke, published this month, completes the trilogy he began with Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire and continued with Ghost Milk. In a talk introduced by novelist and screenwriter Deborah Moggach, he conducts a memory interrogation, touching on the past meetings, lost archives, chance discoveries, volcano obsessions and fated decisions of the Beats.

We are grateful to the Hawthornden Charitable Trust for sponsoring this event.

Ian Sinclair on the Beats

<a href="http://dreaminginthevoid.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dreaming in the Void blog</a> | <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dreaminginthevoid" target="_blank">Other sounds</a>

"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather."
Bill Hicks
Source: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D0BeLz5blM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D0BeLz5blM</a>

One Consciousness by Bill Hicks

<a href="http://dreaminginthevoid.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dreaming in the Void blog</a> | <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dreaminginthevoid" target="_blank">Other sounds</a>

"Conspiracy theory is a kind of epistemological cartoon about reality. I mean isn't it so simple to believe that things are run by the Greys, or isn't it comforting to believe that the Jews are behind everything, or the communist party, or the Catholic Church or the masons. I believe that the truth of the matter is far more terrifying that the real Truth that dare not speak itself is that no one is in control. This stuff is ruled by the equations of dynamics and chaos. Now there may be entities seeking control, the World Bank, the Communist Party, the rich, somebody others, but to seek control is to take enormous aggravations upon yourself, because this process that is under-way will take the control freaks by the short and curly and throw them against the wall."
Terence McKenna
Source: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDnEWHkjBc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDnEWHkjBc</a>

Terence McKenna on conspiracy theory

Linda Anderson, an author and academic who has written extensively on twentieth-century women’s poetry and Elizabeth Bishop, marks the centenary of Bishop’s birth by exploring her genius.  Chaired by Fiona Sampson.


Elizabeth Bishop: dwelling without roots (Linda Anderson)

"Jarrah's Tune" is a Lament, composed by Jane Belfrage originally as a lament for a stillborn child. It was released on Jane's second CD, Into the Deep (2004) and is performed by Jane Belfrage on australian double-strung harp, and Anne Norman on shakuhachi. 
Actor and film director Shingo Usami uses this beautiful track on his short film "Riceballs" (2015) which will soon be viewed in New York.

02 Jarrah's Tune

T. S. Eliot reading the first of the four quartets - Burnt Norton.
Music: Beethoven

T. S. Eliot - Burnt Norton

http://www.iq2if.com In this talk, urban shaman Iain Sinclair argues that we live in the age of the Grand Project, when political and economic elites decide that big visions are required to improve districts and cities. The London 2012 Olympics encapsulate this trend towards "retro-futurism" and they will be extremely damaging to East London.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

Iain Sinclair: Ghost Milk - Calling time on the Grand Project

In this talk, she asks how Eliot tested  a variety of lives in his masterpiece, Four Quartets. How do writers, or risk-takers like his ancestor Andrew Eliot, or Londoners during the Blitz, or members of a religious community, hold up against Eliot's pattern of the perfect life: 'a lifetime burning in every moment'?

TS Eliot and the search for perfection (Lyndall Gordon)

Elaine Showalter discusses the enormous impact of the Brontës - through Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Vilette and Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë - on American women's writing in the 19th century: writers black and white, novelists and poets, from Emily Dickinson to Sarah Orne Jewett, who used the lives and novels of the Brontës as inspirations for American stories.  Chaired by Ion Trewin.

American women writers & the Brontes (Elaine Showalter)

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the award-winning poet Fiona Sampson discuss poetic and religious language, both of which operate outside the usual conventions of description or analysis. Together, they consider the different kind of ‘pressure’ at work in these two modes.


Language Under Stress (Rowan Williams & Fiona Sampson)

Preoccupied with memory and place, both physical and emotional, Michael Ondaatje was recently described by the Guardian as 'one of the most innovative and liberating writers of our time'. In a conversation interwoven with readings, he talks to Fiammetta Rocco, editor of Books and Arts for The Economist about his life and work. 


Time Around Scars (Michael Ondaatje)

Background: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/07/the-histories-of-the-universe-patti-smith/

Patti Smith "The Histories of the Universe" (1975)

Rose Tremain in conversation with Richard Holmes, discussing historical fiction.

Much have I travelled (Rose Tremain)

Stirling University hosted an evening with perhaps one of the best known Nobel winning poets, Seamus Heaney. Thanks to Stirling for recording the event.

Seamus Heaney at Stirling University

David Harsent, who recently won the Griffin International Poetry Prize for his tenth collection, 'Night', discusses and reads from the work of Seamus Heaney, accompanied with recordings of the Nobel Laureate.

Portraits of Writers Series - David Harsent on Seamus Heaney

Paula Johnson, the RSL's Awards Administrator, chairs the V S Pritchett Memorial Prize 2012, an evening in celebration of the short story. Acclaimed author Jackie Kay discusses the genre of the short story, and the themes within her own work, before reading from her latest short story collection, 'Reality, Reality'. Afterward, Chair of the RSL Anne Chisholm presents Martina Kay with her award for Best Short Story, before the author reads her winning piece.

The V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize Reading 2012 - Jackie Kay & winner Martina Devlin

The Joyce trail has led Tom Staley around the world: to Dublin a dozen times; to Paris; and to Trieste, where 'Dubliners' was completed, 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' written,and 'Ulysses' begun. He reflects on these journeys, his studies, and his enduring passion for the genius of Joyce. Chaired by Roy Foster.

A Life with Joyce (Tom Staley)

1362-Intro-Book-Mashes.mp3

In the autumn of 2003, the award-winning poet and novelist James Lasdun gave a fiction workshop to graduates in New York. Among them was a young woman with obvious literary gifts, whose work he tried to encourage by assuming the role of 'avuncular, rather eunuchy' critic-mentor. After a while, however, his reticent-seeming former student morphed into a ferocious cyber-stalker, bombarding Lasdun with emails that swung from declarations of love to wild accusations that he had sold her work to other writers and had her 'drugged and raped', and using the internet to invade every area of his life - private, professional and psychological. Lasdun talks to psychoanalyst and writer Susie Orbach about his memoir, Give Me Everything You Have, exploring the hinterland between obsession and mental illness; the particular psychology of teacher/pupil relationships; the terrifying opportunities that new technology offers stalkers; and the likely conclusion of a situation that remains, as yet, unresolved.

We are grateful to the Royal Literary Fund for sponsoring this event.


James Lasdun and Susie Orbach - On being stalked

THE T.S. ELIOT MEMORIAL MEETING

For Alice Oswald, a poet committed to the live performance of her work, the role of poetry is to go "lower than rhetoric, lower than conversation, lower than logic, right down to the very faint honest voice at the bottom of the skull". Noted for her visionary precision and love of nature, she won the T.S. Eliot Prize for 'Dart' (2002), her poem about the Devon river and the people who live and work on it. But in her most recent work, 'Memorial', she leaves England for the killing fields of Troy, in a reworking of the Iliad described by Andrew Motion as "an elegy of quite extraordinary power". The Classics, and especially Ovid’s Metamorphoses, have also been a lodestone for Robin Robertson. The first person to win the Forward Poetry Prize in all three categories - 'A Painted Field' (1997) was Best First Collection, 'Swithering' (2006) Best Collection, and ‘At Roane Head’ (2010) Best Single Poem - Robertson has been praised by John Banville for his "genius for exact and gorgeous imagery, his dazzling metaphorical gift". In the newly published 'Hill of Doors', he combines loose retellings of stories of the shape-shifter Dionysus with poems about his childhood on the north-east coast of Scotland. It is his most powerful book to date.

We are grateful to Old Possum's Practical Trust for sponsoring this reading.

Alice Oswald & Robin Robertson - March 2013

Founded in 1820, the RSL acts as a voice for the value of literature, honouring and supporting emerging and established writers whilst creating a bridge between authors and audiences of all backgrounds and experiences to engage as many people as possible with the wealth of literature in the UK.

TS Eliot and the search for perfection (Lyndall Gordon)

Royal Society Literature