Conference on
The Life and Writings of Helen
Waddell (1889-1965)
Queen’s University Belfast
11-12 May 2012
Helen Waddell (1889-1965)
Among the first flood of women graduating from Queen’s
in the early twentieth century was the brilliant Helen
Waddell. She gained her BA with first-class honours in
English in 1911, writing a Master’s thesis the following
year. Obliged to remain in Belfast as a companion to her
stepmother for the next eight years, she continued
academic research as well as writing creatively,
publishing Lyrics from the Chinese in 1913. After
Waddell’s death she studied at Somerville College,
Oxford, taught at Bedford College, London and
researched in Paris. Failing to secure a permanent
academic post, she pursued a very successful career as an
independent medieval scholar, writer and translator.
Among her most well-known publications are: The
Wandering Scholars (reprinted three times within a year
of its publication in 1927 and for which she was awarded
the A. C. Benson silver medal by the Royal Society of
Literature); Medieval Latin Lyrics, 1929, and a novel,
Peter Abelard, published in 1933. Waddell received
honorary degrees from the University of Durham (1932),
Queen’s University Belfast (1934), Columbia University
(1935), and St Andrew’s University (1936). She was made
an associate of the Irish Academy of Letters (1932) and a
corresponding fellow of the Medieval Academy of
America (1937). She befriended authors such as George
Russell (AE), Bernard Shaw, and Siegfried Sassoon and
politicians such as Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. The
early onset of dementia cut short a career whose
beginnings had been so delayed. Her works melded
scholarship and imagination, stimulating popular success
although not always acceptable to the academy. Recent
and ongoing research, exemplified by this conference, has
recovered Waddell as a significant writer, suggesting new
ways of reading her distinctiveness as a medievalist,
translator and creative writer.
Conference Programme
Friday, 11 May
5.30 pm Coffee/Tea
6.00-6:15 Welcome
Professor Mary O’Dowd (Queen’s
University Belfast)
6:15-7.45 pm
Session 1: Peter Abelard the Novel
Chair: Dr Ramona Wray (Queen’s University
Belfast)
Dr Catherine Smith (NUI, Maynooth): ‘”Spider
Web of Woman's Life”: Private Space in Peter
Abelard’
Dr Eibhear Walshe (University College,
Cork): ‘The Historical Novel: Helen Waddell’s
Peter Abelard and Kate O’Brien’s That Lady’
Dr Stephen Kelly (Queen’s University
Belfast): ‘Waddell's Fiction as Affective
Historiography"
8.00 pm Reception/Buffet Dinner
Launch of Jennifer FitzGerald, Helen Waddell
and Maude Clarke: Irishwomen, Friends and
Scholars (Peter Lang, 2012) by Professor Marie
Therese Flanagan (Queen’s University Belfast)
.
.
More information from Professor Mary O’Dowd
Queen’s University Belfast
Email: m.odowd@qub.ac.uk
Venue for Conference:
Humanities Postgraduate Centre
Queen’s University Belfast
18 College Green
Saturday, 12 May
9.30-11.30 am
Session 2: Critical Readings
Chair: Dr John Scattergood (Trinity
College, Dublin)
Dr Amanda Tucker (University of
Wisconsin at Platteville): ‘"The Ties That
Bind: Waddell's Fairy Tales, the Lost Decade,
and the Transnational Imaginary.’
Professor Helen Carr (Goldsmith’s
College, London): 'Wandering Poets and the
Spirit of Romance in Helen Waddell and Ezra
Pound'.
Dr Clare Carpenter (York University):
‘Helen Waddell’s Wandering Scholars,
Medieval Latin Lyrics and “The Lost
Generation”’
Professor Norman Vance (University of
Sussex): 'Writing Beyond Rome and Geneva'
11.30-11.45 am Coffee
11.45-1.15 pm
Session 3: Medieval Contexts
1.15-2.15 pm LUNCH
Registration Details
2.15 – 4.15 pm
Session 4: Beside and Alongside Helen
Waddell
Chair: Dr Myrtle Hill (Queen’s University
Belfast)
Louise Wasson (Queen’s University
Belfast): ‘Helen Waddell, Evelyn Underhill
and Hope Emily Allen: A Portrait of Early
Twentieth-Century Medievalism’
Professor David Burleigh (Ferris
University, Yokohama): ‘Parallel Lives:
Helen Waddell and Arthur Waley’
Dr Nini Rodgers (Queen’s University
Belfast): 'Endogamy and Emigration, Helen
Waddell and the Victorian family’
Dr Jennifer FitzGerald (San Diego State
University): ‘”The Fun of Being Intellectual”:
Maude Clarke, Irish Medievalist’
Registration Fee: £15 sterling
(Buffet Dinner: £15)
For online registration and more
information see:
http://wwwqub.ac.uk/schools/Schoolof
HistoryandAnthropology/
Contact:
Professor Mary O’Dowd
School of History and Anthropology
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast BT7 1NN
Email: m.odowd@qub.ac.uk
Exhibition
There will be an exhibition on Helen
Waddell and her writings in the
MCCLAY LIBRARY at Queen’s
during the conference.
Chair: Dr Stephen Kelly (Queen’s
University Belfast)
The organisers are grateful for financial
support from Somerville College, Oxford;
the International Research Forum on
Women, Queen’s University Belfast; the
School of English, Queen’s University
Belfast and the School of History and
Anthropology, Queen’s University Belfast,
and the Esme Mitchell Trust Foundation.
Professor Constant Mews (Monash
University, Melbourne): ‘Helen Waddell and
Heloise: Continuity of a Learned Tradition’
Dr Ann Buckley (Trinity College, Dublin):
'Wandering Scholars and Saintly Cults: the
Medieval Office of St Fursa’
Professor Charles Lock (University
Copenhagen): ‘Helen Waddell: Redeeming
the Dark Ages’
AN OPPORTUNITY TO CALLOUT AN INTERESTING POINT
YOU MAY WANT TO SHARE
WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
More information from Professor Mary O’Dowd
Queen’s University Belfast
Email: m.odowd@qub.ac.uk