This is the draft programme for English: Shared Futures 2025, July 3rd to 5th 2025. Please be aware that the programme is subject to change. Contact programme@englishsharedfutures.org with any questions or inquires.
Publishers' Hall will be open throughout the conference
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Small Press and Little Magazine Fair, Saturday 5th July
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Publishers' Hall will be open throughout the conference 〰️ Small Press and Little Magazine Fair, Saturday 5th July 〰️
Thursday 3rd July 2025
9.15-10.45
Breakfast Salon: DIY Book Launch
Celebrate recent and imminent publications across the disciplines. If you have a book to celebrate, you are invited to bring a copy for display in Publishers’ Hall. Invite a friend or colleague to say a few words about your book, or ask us to pair you with an appreciative and eloquent reader! More details to follow.
Roundtable
Shared Futures: a Student Perspective
Panel - Race and Social Justice in the HE Classroom
Janine Bradbury (University of York), ‘Teaching from the Edge: New Approaches to Teaching Contemporary Black Writing’
Kimberly Gunter (Fairfield University), ‘Writing Across the Curriculum as a Means of Social Justice Teaching: Supporting Cross-Disciplinary Faculty in Teaching Disciplinary Writing’
Demelza Hall and Kristin Leeds (Guildford Young College), ‘Towards Decolonising White Curricula: Anticipatory Pedagogy in the Australian English Classroom’
Town Hall - Throughtopias
A frank and free-ranging discussion of where English Studies is now and the challenges we are facing, and a chance to reimagine our shared futures. How have we made it through past crises — for our disciplines and for HE — and what stories do we want to be able to tell in future about where our disciplines have been and where they are going?
11.00-12.30
Workshop - Poetry in Schools: a Way to Wellbeing
Speakers: Matt Abbott and Natasha Ryan
Sponsored by The Poetry Society
Panel - Divergent Writers: Neurodivergence and Inclusion in Creative Writing
Rachel Carney (Cardiff University), ‘Neurodiversity in the Creative Writing Classroom: The Nuance of Language’
Oz Hardwick (Leeds Trinity University), ‘Reframing Writing for Wellbeing’
Beth Rees, ‘From Rejection to Resilience: Supporting Creative Writing Students with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria’
Panel - Reading Matters 1: Reflections on Practice
Organisers: Ben Davies (University of Portsmouth /University English), Michael Durrant (Institute of English Studies)
Speakers: Laura Dietz (University College London), Carina Spaulding (The Reading Agency), Lisa Blower (Keele University)
Sponsored by University English
Panel - Legacy and Progress in the Classroom
Rachel Roberts (University of Reading), ‘“Careful Disorder”: Rosenblatt’s Legacy’
Kathy Halliday (Barnsley College), ‘Getting Started: Reflections on what Progress Looks Like in the GCSE English Re-sit Classroom’
Nicole Dingwall (University of Oxford), ‘English Teachers and their Escape Routes’
Panel - Literary Criticism Now
Aretha Phiri (Rhodes University), Navigating (and Surviving) English Studies in the Contemporary Moment: a (Slightly Cynical) View from the South
Andy Goodwyn (University of Reading), ‘James Britton: his Legacy to the Future of English’
Simon Grimble (Durham University), ‘“Everyone hates a sad professor”: Imagining the Literary Critic in Contemporary Britain and America’
12.30-13.30
Picnic in the Park (optional)
Bring your own lunch, and join fellow delegates to eat and chat
13.30-15.00
Panel - Theory and Precarity
James A. Smith (Royal Holloway, University of London), ‘Versions of Precarity in Theory… And What Literature Has to Say’
Krissie West (Royal Holloway, University of London), ‘Precarity, Shame, and Performativity in Copjec and de Man’
Neil Cocks (University of Reading), ‘The Precarious Figure: On Working with Alfred Hitchcock and Christopher Morris’
Panel - Reading Matters 2: Reading Lives Salon
Organisers: Ben Davies (University of Portsmouth /University English), Michael Durrant (Institute of English Studies)
Speakers: Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway, University of London), Gail Marshall (University of Reading), Shafquat Towheed (Open University), JT Welsch (University of York)
Sponsored by University English
Roundtable - Dialogues on Diversity: Teaching GCSE English in Schools
Speakers: Ali Al-Jamri, Rob Burroughs (Leeds Beckett University), Caroline Herbert (Leeds Beckett University), Emily Zobel Marshall, Hanna Lilly (Co-Op Multi-Academies Trust)
Panel - Creative Writing Now
Speakers TBC
15.15-16.45
The Society for Renaissance Studies Annual Lecture
delivered by Professor Kevin Killeen, University of York
’Abortion Poetics in Early Modern England’
Sponsored by the Society for Renaissance Studies
Panel - Race and Secondary English Literature Teaching
Adrian Fernandes (University of Oxford), ‘English Teachers’ Journeys Since the 2020 Iteration of Black Lives Matter’
Lesley Nelson-Addy, ‘“Race”, “Empire” and “Migration” are Literary Themes’
Velda Elliott (University of Oxford), ‘Dickens’ Obsession with Punch (the Drink) and Other Tales of Empire’
Roundtable - Boys and English
Chair: Simon Kövesi (University of Glasgow)
Speakers: Emma Berry-Dinnage (Tamworth Enterprise College), Rachel Roberts (University of Reading), Helen Thomson (University of York)
Roundtable - English and Film: the History of a Shared Future, the Future of a Shared History
Speakers: Erica Sheen (University of York), Suzanne Speidel (Sheffield Hallam University), Murray Smith (University of Kent), Kamilla Elliott (Lancaster University), Sheldon Hall (Sheffield Hallam University)
17.00-18.00
The Anthony V. Capildeo Salon: A Celebration
Friday 4th July 2025
Pop up poetry library, hosted by Manchester Poetry Library
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Friday 4th and Saturday 5th July
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Pop up poetry library, hosted by Manchester Poetry Library 〰️ Friday 4th and Saturday 5th July 〰️
9.15-10.45
Panel - Climate Futures
Gina Lyle (University of York), ‘Teaching Climate Futures in English Literature’
Adam Stock (York St John University), ‘Arid Lands and Fertile Thinking: Science Fiction, Deserts, and Environmental Humanities Teaching’
Maria Pujol-Valls (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona)), ‘Teaching Climate Fiction for Young Readers at University Level to Enhance Critical Thinking and Climate Awareness’
Panel - Futures of HE Teaching
Anne-Marie Evans (York St John University), ‘Creating Opportunities for Postgraduate Researchers: The Teaching Circles Project’
Nicola Bishop (De Montfort University) and Ginette Carpenter (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘Active Learning and Embedded Personal Tutoring: a Holistic Approach to First Year Module Design’
Silvia E. Storti, ‘If on a Winter’s Night a Teacher: an ECR Perspective on Teaching and Learning’
Panel - Reading Futures
Ana María Sánchez-Arce (Sheffield Hallam University) and Mitoko Hirabayashi (Aichi Shukutoku University, Japan), ‘Shared Reading, Shared Worlds? Readers in England and Japan Imagine Fictional Characters in Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View of Hills (1982)’
Joseph Williams (University of East Anglia), ‘Who is English for? The Peri-Academic Reader in Postwar Literary Culture’
Dion Everett, ‘We Are All Richard Papen: Dark Academia, BookTok, and Post-Pandemic Readership’
Panel - ‘‘Turning Over a New Leaf’: English Studies and Teaching in the Climate Emergency 1
Mary Colwell, ‘Natural History’
Ralph Pite (University of Bristol), '“Turning Over a New Leaf” and “The Green Thread”’
Elena Lengthorn (University of Worcester), ‘Literature and Climate Change: Across the Curriculum’
Michael Warren (Birkbeck College, University of London) in Conversation
Panel - Wasafiri x Shared Futures
Speakers TBC
11.00-12.30
Workshop and Walkshop - Linguistic Landscaping
Beck Sinar (University of York)
Panel - Genres of Care in the Contemporary
Chair: Alexandra Kingston-Reese (University of York)
Jennifer Cooke (Loughborough University), ‘Detecting Dirt and Reimagining Cleaning in Contemporary Literature and Post-Work Theory’
David James (University of Birmingham'), ‘A Reprieve for Pathos? Caring about Sentiment in Medical Memoir’
Helen Small (University of Oxford), ‘Limited Affordances: Contemporary Fictions of Care’
Roundtable - Oracy and the Fightback for English Studies
Chair: Tom F. Wright (University of Sussex)
Speakers: Geoff Barton (Chair of the Oracy Education Commission and General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)), Barbara Bleiman (English and Media Centre (EMC))
Sponsored by the English Association
Roundtable - Teaching Writing: the Work of English?
Speakers: Ben Card (Yale University), Sophie Coulombeau (University of York), Joe Moshenska (University College, Oxford), Orlando Reade (Northeastern University London), Georgina Wilson (University of York)
Panel - ‘‘Turning Over a New Leaf’: English Studies and Teaching in the Climate Emergency 2
David Cooper (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘“The Lure of the Local”: Co-Creating a Place-Based Scheme of Work’
Kate Pahl and Samyia Ambreen (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘Voices of the Future: Children and Young People as Co-researchers of Place’
Francesca Mackenney (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘The Place of Poetry in Environmental Education’
12.30-13.30
Walkshop - ‘Turning Over a New Leaf’
Walking Tour - York’s Printing History
Led by Thin Ice Press: the York Centre for Print
13.30-15.00
Plenary Lecture
delivered by Professor Rob Drummond, Manchester Metropolitan University
Panel - English with … Librarians
Speakers tbc
Demonstration - Readers and Listeners: ‘The LitMus Test’
delivered by Delia da Sousa Correa, Joanne Reardon, Francesca Benatti, Natalie Burton (Open University)
University English Heads of Departments and Heads of Subject Meeting
15.15-16.45
Panel - New Media Futures
Mohammad Adnan (University of Leeds), ‘Towards a “Palimpsestuous” Understanding of Adaptation: Haptolinguistics and Visuality in Video Game Adaptations of Illuminated Manuscripts’
|Richard Storer (Leeds Trinity University), ‘Podcasts and English: showcasing “Relational Pedagogy”’
Elisa Fuhrken (Northeastern University), ‘Is Taylor Swift the Future of English Studies?: What the Taylor Swift Harvard University English Course Can Teach Us’
Roundtable - English with … Maths
Speakers: Rebecca Fisher (English Association), Mason Pember (University of Bath), Neil Saunders (City St George’s, University of London). Rachel Helme (University of Bristol)
Sponsored by the English Association
Panel - ‘Gothic Crossovers’: International and Multidisciplinary Encounters in Gothic and Horror Studies
Speakers: Eleanor Beal, Emma Liggins, Bronte Schiltz, Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies Conference Intern 2025 (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Panel - Whose English?
Ida Baizura Bahar (Universiti Putra Malaysia), ‘Whose English? Whose Future? Rethinking English Studies through Decolonisation, Inclusivity and the Contributions of Tan Twan Eng in Malaysian Literature in English’
Mahin Wahla (Monash University), ‘Decolonizing Memoir: Muslim Women’s Life Writing as Epistemic Disruption in English Studies’
Hemza Boudersa, ‘Beyond Conventional Language Skills, Capturing Intercultural Competences in Teaching English as a Life Skill in an Algerian E.F.L Situation’
Panel - Music, Memory and Memoir: An interdisciplinary model
Speakers: Helen Pleasance, Robert Edgar, and Fraser Mann (York St John University)
Panel - Doing Things with Creative Writing
Amina Alyal and Oz Hardwick (Leeds Trinity University), ‘Seeding Change: Creative Writing for Plant Health’
Cameron Inglis, ‘Using Speculative Creative Writing to Tackle Contemporary Debates in Physics’
Rachel Carney (Cardiff University and Swansea University), ‘Infiltrating Academia: Creative Writing as Research Method’
17.00-18.00
Plenary Lecture
Delivered by Professor Anshuman Mondal, University of East Anglia
This lecture is generously sponsored by Manchester University Press
18.00-20.00
Presentation of the University English Book Prize
followed by
Decolonising the Discipline Reception
Saturday 4th July 2025
Pop up poetry library, hosted by Manchester Poetry Library, Friday 4th and Saturday 5th July
〰️
Small Press and Little Magazine Fair, Saturday 5th July
Pop up poetry library, hosted by Manchester Poetry Library, Friday 4th and Saturday 5th July 〰️ Small Press and Little Magazine Fair, Saturday 5th July
9.15-10.45
Plenary Lecture
delivered by Professor Harriet Tarlo, Sheffield Hallam University
Panel - New Futures for Secondary English
Matt Ingram, ‘Questions in Queering a Secondary English Curriculum’
Rebecca Yearling (Keele University), ‘To Warn or Not to Warn: Exploring Content Warnings and Student Reactions to Shakespeare’s Violence in UK Schools’
Shelby Knighten (University of Oxford), ‘Pride and Prejudice and Pedagogy: Results from a Preliminary Study of Teaching Jane Austen at GCSE English’
Roundtable - English Opens Doors: Articulating the Value of English Studies
Chair: Elizabeth Draper (The English Association)
Speakers: Kate McLoughlin (University of Oxford), Andrew McRae (University of Exeter), Jennifer Richards (University of Cambridge), Cathy Shrank (University of Sheffield)
Sponsored by the English Association
Roundtable - Let’s Talk about GCSE English Reform. Is it Time to Embrace the Contemporary alongside the Canonical?
Led by Pearson qualifications
Workshop - English in Transition: what Happens to English between Primary and Secondary School?
What do we want English teaching to look like at primary school in 2025? What do we want the teachers of the future to understand about teaching English? What and how should they be teaching?
Led by Octavia Ward (Anglia Ruskin University) and Lauren Cox (Soke Education Trust and Anglia Ruskin University)
11.00-12.30
Hands-on Workshop - Making Grammar Fun
Led by Naomi Hetherington (University of Sheffield)
Roundtable - Futures for English and Assessment, with Members of Exam Boards
Chair: Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway)
Speakers: Eva McManamon (Pearson qualifications), Joanne Stanway (AQA), Lydia Ridding (OCR|), Catherine Oldham (WJEC)
Sponsored by the English Association
Panel - Teaching English in the Twenty-First Century
Larissa McLean Davies (University of Melbourne) and Velda Elliott (University of Oxford), ‘Using Proximities as a Lens to Consider English (L1) Education’
David Savill and Phillip Tipton (University of Salford), ‘Weathering the Storm: English curriculum development in a ‘mid-tariff’ institution’
Joseph Anderton (Birmingham City University), ‘From Liking to Learning: Productive Discomfort as a Transformative Threshold in English Literature Studies (HE)’
Panel - Novel Futures
Alex Calder (University of Cambridge), ‘The Gender of the Contemporary Maximalist Novel’
Dominic Dean (University of Sussex), ‘Small Towns and Forgotten Counties: Non-Metropolitan England in 2010s and 2020s Novels by Jim Crace, Melissa Harrison and Alan Hollinghurst’
Andy Goodwyn (University of Reading), ‘“Darkness visible”: Teaching Dystopian texts in the Age of Anxiety?’
Panel - Lines of Flight: Innovative Approaches Through/Out English Futures?
Speakers: Sharon Ruston, Kwasu Tembo, Liz Oakley-Brown (Lancaster University)
Workshop - Neurodiversity and English Literature
Led by Louise Creechan (Durham University) and Angela Eyre (Open University)
Unteaching Creative Writing - Workshop for Teachers, Academics, and Kids
Led by Sarah Williams (Writing in York)
Please note: this workshop lasts for two hours, with a half hour ‘unteaching’ session for teachers and academics, followed by a ninety minute creative workshop for adults and children.
12.30-13.30
Storytelling Session
Organised in collaboration with Writing in York
13.30-15.00
Plenary Lecture
Delivered by Ife Thompson (Nexus Chambers, United Nations Fellow & BLAM UK Founder)
Workshop - Beyond the Essay: Creative-Critical Teaching
Led by Thomas Karshan (University of East Anglia), Kate Bomford (UCL), Andrew McCallum and Barbara Bleiman (English and Media Centre (EMC))
Roundtable - PhD Assessment
Speakers include Jerome de Groot (University of Manchester), Harriet Tarlo (Sheffield Hallam University) and Helen Smith (University of York)
Storytelling Session
In collaboration with Writing in York
Enjoying English: A Celebration
15.15-16.45
Plenary Session - English Matters
Speakers TBC
Sponsored by University English