Friday 16th April
8:30
Welcome coffee and registration
9:15 Welcome Address
Prof. Ivan Callus (University of Malta)
9:30 – 11:00
Panel 1 – Modernisms Revisited I
Chair: Andre Delicata
Anna van Lopik (University College London) - 'Leading to Nothing': Norah James'
Sleeveless Errand and the Inter-war Car-crash
Nicholas Dziadyk (University of Malta) - The Principles of Exchange in Edith Wharton‟s
The House of Mirth
Michelle Montebello (University of Malta) - Desire to Possess/Possessed by Desire
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee Break
11:30 – 13:00
Chair: Daniel Vella
Panel 2 - Art, Religion and Politics
Charis Mallia (University of Malta) - Gesturing Toward a Beyond: Religion and
Romanticism in the Poetry of T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens
Eftychia Sofiali (University of Cardiff) - Heidegger and Modern Art: The Religious
Dimension of the Work of Barnett Newman
Vanessa Psaila (University of Malta) - The Politics of Autonomy: De-Absolutising Art in
the Thought of Jacques Rancière
13:00 – 14:00
Lunch Break
14:00 – 15:00
Panel 3 – Language, Youth and Education
Chair: Odette Vassallo
Samantha Austen (University of Cardiff) - Learner Error in Second Language
Acquisition: the Transfer of Form or Concept?
Valerie Visanich (University of Malta) -„Anthem of a Doomed Youth?‟: Generational
Habitus of Youth in Late Modernity
15:00-16:00
Keynote Address
Chair: Abigail Zammit
Stephen Knight (Goldsmiths College) -
16:00 – 16:30
Where Am I?: Adventures of the Self in
Poetry and Prose
Coffee Break
16:30 – 18:00
Panel 4 – Popular Post-Humanities
Chair: Clive Piscopo
Ruth Aquilina (University of Malta) - Rejecting the Posthuman: A Close Reading of Lord
Voldemort in J.K. Rowling‟s Harry Potter series
Christianne Grech (University of Malta) - Re-Configuring Past Texts: Re-Vision in Neil
Gaiman‟s Graphic Novels
Pauline Fenech (University of Malta) - No More Happy Endings / A Resistance to
Closure
Saturday 17th April
9:00 – 9:30
Welcome coffee and registration
9:30 – 10:30
Keynote Address
Chair: Katryna Storace
Prof. Peter Vassallo (University of Malta) - Ordering Chaos: Modernism and the
Mythopoeic Imagination
10:30 – 11:00
Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:30
Panel 5 – Reality and Fantasies
Chair: Giuliana Peresso
Teodor Reljic & Daniel Vella (University of Malta) - "Another, More Accurate Version
of the World": Secondary Worlds and the Impulse to Fantasy in the Work of M. John
Harrison
Conrad Aquilina (University of Malta) - The Ruptured Real: Realism as Illusion and
Disillusionment
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch Break
13:30 – 15:00
Panel 6 – Constructions of Identity
Chair: Mario Aquilina
Lara Schembri & Katryna Storace (University of Malta) - “The Past! The Past!”: Guy
Maddin, Virginia Woolf, and the Form of the Past
Ester Ippolito (University of Kent) - Fragmenting the Modern: Exploring the Creation of
a Polymorphous Artist Identity - Francesco Clemente as Case Study
15:00 – 16:30
Panel 7 – Historicized Spaces of Modernity and Postmodernity
Chair: Giuliana Peresso
Matthew Ingleby (University College London) - Before Bloomsbury/After Bloomsbury:
Spatial Spectres Beneath Modernist Metaphors
Daniel Vella (University of Malta) - Ideological Systematizations: Models of History in
Civilization II
Kevin Wain (University of Malta) - The Writing of History: Contingency and Openness
in a Postmodern World
16:30 – 17:00
Coffee Break
17:00 – 18:00
Chair: Chris Galea
Panel 8 – Modernisms Revisited II
Mario Aquilina (Durham University) - Historicising Style: A Critique of Jameson‟s
“Teleocratic” Discussion of Literary Form in Conrad
Filippo Mariano (Scuola Normale di Pisa) - Eugene O‟Neill‟s Mourning Becomes Electra
and Aeschylus‟ Oresteia
18:00 – 18:10
Closing Address
Dr. James Corby (University of Malta)