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School of English

Conference
Locating George Herbert: Family, Place, Traditions

13-16 October 2011
Gregynog Conference Centre, Newtown, Powys, Wales

An international, interdisciplinary conference of the George Herbert Society

Conference activities will include plenary speakers and poetry readings, a rich range of paper panels and discussion sessions, a choral concert and an optional worship service. Speakers at the conference include literary scholars, historians, theologians, poets and musicians who seek to present and discuss Herbert from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and especially in relation to issues of family, spirituality, literary tradition, place and Celtic cultural traditions.

Plenary Speakers

  • Gillian Clarke (National Poet of Wales)
  • John Drury (Chaplain and Fellow of All Souls, Oxford)
  • Achsah Guibbory (Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English, Barnard College of Columbia University, New York)
  • Christopher Hodgkins (Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

Panel topics include

  • Herbert’s poetic debt to architecture and landscapes;
  • questions of border politics and cultural intersection in late medieval and Tudor-Stuart Wales;
  • Herbert’s relation to Welsh language and poetic forms, and to Celtic spirituality;
  • Herbert’s near family connections, especially to his father Richard Herbert, his mother Magdalen Newport Herbert, and to his brothers Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury and Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels;
  • Herbert’s connections to his cousins and later kinsmen the Earls of Pembroke, Montgomery, and Powis;
  • his debt to and influence on Welsh poets;
  • his ‘location’ in the wider literary, theological and cultural contexts of his time.

We will visit the Herbert family monuments in St Nicholas Church, Montgomery, the Herbert family castles of Montgomery and Powis, the workings of the Gregynog Press, and we will enjoy a supper in the historic Montgomery Town Hall (with plenty of time for quiet walks, convivial teas and drinks, and shared meals in the Gregynog dining room).

For further information please contact Helen Wilcox (helen.wilcox@bangor.ac.uk), Christopher Hodgkins (herbconf@uncg.edu), or Linda Jones (l.c.jones@bangor.ac.uk)

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