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
8.30
Registration opens at The Guildhall, St Martins Courtyard, Coney Street, York
9.15-10.45
Breakfast Salon: DIY Book Launch
at The Guildhall, Riverside Lounge
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! To submit details of a book, please complete this short form.
Town Hall - Throughtopias
in The Guildhall Main Hall
Join us for 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
in The Guildhall Main Hall
Chair: Amina Alyal (Leeds Trinity University)
Speakers: Matt Abbott and Natasha Ryan
Sponsored by The Poetry Society
Reading Matters 1: Reading Lives Salon
in De Grey House, Ballroom
Chair: Ben Davies (University of Portsmouth)
Speakers: Jennifer Cooke (Loughborough), Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway, University of London), Rebecca Fisher (CEO English Association), Gail Marshall (University of Reading), JT Welsch (University of York)
Organisers: Ben Davies (University of Portsmouth /University English), Michael Durrant (Institute of English Studies). Sponsored by University English.
Panel - Legacy and Progress in the Classroom
in King’s Manor, K/133
Chair: Patricia Bond (University of York)
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
in King’s Manor, K/159
Chair: Fraser Mann (York St John University)
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’
Wasafiri x E:SF 1 - Incomprehension and Living Between
in The Guildhall, Riverside Lounge
Chair: Maya Caspari (University of York)
Jen Calleja, Fair: the Life Art of Translation
Elif Gülez (University of Warwick), After Careful Consideration: Writing, Translating and Living Between Languages
Ann Morgan (A Year of Reading the World), Embracing Not-knowing: The Wonder of Incomprehension
Gokul Prabhu, Queer Opacity in Translation: Ethics, Power, and the Refusal of Legibility
Jenny Wong, Multilingual Chinese Writers: from Creative Tension to Craft
12.30-13.30
Picnic in the Park (optional)
Bring your own lunch, and join fellow delegates to eat and chat in York’s Museum Gardens, by the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey.
13.30-15.00
Panel - Theory and Precarity
in King’s Manor, K/159
Chair: Mohammed Adnan (University of Leeds)
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: Reflections on Practice
in De Grey House, Ballroom
Chair: Michael Durrant
Speakers: Georgina Wilson (University of York), Carina Spaulding (The Reading Agency), Lisa Blower (Keele University)
Organisers: Ben Davies (University of Portsmouth /University English), Michael Durrant (Institute of English Studies). Sponsored by University English.
Roundtable - Dialogues on Diversity: Teaching GCSE English in Schools
in King’s Manor, K/133
Speakers: Ali Al-Jamri (Co-Op Multi-Academies Trust), Nick Cox (Leeds Beckett University), Caroline Herbert (Leeds Beckett University), Hanna Lilley (Co-Op Multi-Academies Trust)
Panel - Divergent Writers: Neurodivergence and Inclusion in Creative Writing
in The Guildhall, Riverside Lounge
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’
Roundtable - Creative Writing Now
in The Guildhall Main Hall
Chair: Anthony Capildeo (University of York)
Speakers include J. R. Carpenter (University of Leeds), Joanne Limburg (University of Cambridge), Juliana Mensah (University of York), Alycia Pirmohamed and Sam Reese (York St John University)
15.15-16.45
The Society for Renaissance Studies Annual Lecture
in De Grey House, Ballroom
delivered by Professor Kevin Killeen, University of York
Chaired by Georgina Wilson, University of York and Jane Rickard, University of Leeds
’Abortion Poetics in Early Modern England’
Sponsored by the Society for Renaissance Studies
Panel - Race and Secondary English Literature Teaching
in King’s Manor, K/133
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
in The Guildhall Main Hall
Chair: Simon Kövesi (University of Glasgow)
Speakers: Emma Berry-Dinnage (Tamworth Enterprise College), Rachel Roberts (University of Reading), Helen Thomson (University of York)
Sponsored by the English Association
Roundtable - English and Film: the History of a Shared Future, the Future of a Shared History
in The Guildhall, Riverside Lounge
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)
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 〰️
11.00-17.00 Pop-up Poetry Library, hosted by Manchester Poetry Library
in De Grey House, Cocktail Room
How can poetry libraries and English Studies aspire to utopian co-production? Join Anita Slater and Martin Kratz of the Manchester Poetry Library to rethink the poetry library as a space of hope and action.
9.15-10.45
Panel - Climate Futures
in King’s Manor, K/159
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 - Reading Futures
in De Grey House, Ballroom
Chair: Eleanor Beal (Manchester Metropolitan University)
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
in King’s Manor, Huntingdon Room
Chair: David Cooper (Manchester Metropolitan University)
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
11.00-12.30
Workshop and Walkshop - Linguistic Landscaping
in King’s Manor, K/159
Beck Sinar (University of York)
Panel - Genres of Care in the Contemporary
in King’s Manor, K/133
Chair: Mary Fairclough (University of York)
Jennifer Cooke (Loughborough University), ‘Detecting Dirt and Reimagining Cleaning in Contemporary Literature and Post-Work Theory’
Alexandra Kingston-Reese (University of York), ‘Care as Social Poesis’
Helen Small (University of Oxford), ‘Limited Affordances: Contemporary Fictions of Care’
Roundtable - Oracy and the Fightback for English Studies
in De Grey House, Ballroom
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?
in The Guildhall, Main Hall
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
in King’s Manor, Huntingdon Room
Chair: Ralph Pite (University of Bristol)
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’
Panel - Race and Social Justice in the HE Classroom
in The Guildhall, Riverside Lounge
Janine Bradbury (University of York), ‘Teaching from the Edge: New Approaches to Teaching Contemporary Black Writing’
Demelza Hall and Kristin Leeds (University of Tasmania and Guildford Young College), ‘Towards Decolonising White Curricula: Anticipatory Pedagogy in the Australian English Classroom’
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
in De Grey House, Ballroom
Voices, Identities, and Going Public
delivered by Professor Rob Drummond, Manchester Metropolitan University
Roundtable - English with … Librarians
in King’s Manor, Huntingdon Room
Chair: Martin Kratz (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Speakers include Olivia Else and Kirsty Whitehead (University of York), Lucas Maxwell (Glenthorne High School)
Demonstration - Readers and Listeners: ‘The LitMus Test’
in The Guildhall, Main Hall
delivered by Delia da Sousa Correa, Joanne Reardon, Francesca Benatti, Natalie Burton (Open University)
Panel - Print, Place and Community
in The Guildhall, Main Hall
Chair: Helen Smith (University of York)
Speakers include David Armes (Red Plate Press), Kathy Davies (British Library), Nick Hand (Department of Small Works) and Helen Williams (Northumbria University)
University English Heads of Departments and Heads of Subject Meeting
in The Guildhall, Council Chamber
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
Chair: Pritika Pradhan (University of York)
Speakers: Eleanor Beal, Emma Liggins, Bronte Schiltz, Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies Conference Intern 2025 (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Panel - Whose English?
Chair: Gokul Prabhu
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
Chair: Joseph Williams (University of East Anglia)
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
The Ethics of Erasure, or, Being Open About Closure
Professor Anshuman Mondal, University of East Anglia
Chaired by Clare Lees (Institute of English Studies)
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
Decolonising the Discipline invites you to join us after Anshuman Mondal’s plenary lecture to celebrate his work and that of decolonial practitioners in English Studies. Anshu is a founding member of this collaborative network supporting good practice and innovation in the field, undertaken jointly by colleagues in the English Association, the Institute of English Studies , University English, the University of East Anglia, and the Postcolonial Studies Association.
Saturday 5th 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 〰️
Join us for the Anthony V. Capildeo salon, which will run at King’s Manor from 10.00-16.00, and culminate with Word-Mead Bring, a celebration of poetry and of English in its numerous forms and histories.
You are welcome to drop in to read or write a poem with Anthony, one of the world’s leading contemporary poets, recently awarded both the Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry 2025 and the Bocas Prize for Poetry, and to enjoy poetry and performances at 10.00 from Lydia Wilson and at 11.00 from Kimberly Campanello, and a participatory Lishi demonstration at 14.00.
9.15-10.45
Plenary Lecture
The Interface: Exploring and Ensuring Shared Futures for Critical-Creative and Environmental Enterprises within and without the Academy.
Professor Harriet Tarlo, Sheffield Hallam University
Workshop - Teaching Creative Writing Using Moving Image
Led by Anthony Cockerill (National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE))
Panel - New Futures for Secondary English
Chair: Suzanne Speidel (Sheffield Hallam University)
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: Katy Lewis (Pearson qualifications), Bethan Marshall (King’s College London), Lydia Ridding (OCR|), Catherine Oldham (WJEC)
Sponsored by the English Association
Panel - Teaching English in the Twenty-First Century
Chair: Simon Grimble (Durham University)
Larissa McLean Davies (University of Melbourne) and Velda Elliott (University of Oxford), ‘Using Proximities as a Lens to Consider English (L1) Education’
Joseph Anderton (Birmingham City University), ‘From Liking to Learning: Productive Discomfort as a Transformative Threshold in English Literature Studies (HE)’
Panel - Novel Futures
Chair: Bryan Radley (University of York)
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?
Chair: Andrew McRae (University of Exeter)
Sharon Ruston (Lancaster University), ‘Crowdsourcing Projects: The Case of the Humphry Davy Notebooks’
Liz Oakley Brown(Lancaster University), ‘A Thousand Premodern Plateaus?: Teaching Beyond the Medieval and Early Modern Canon’
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 Marco Condorelli (University of Leeds), 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
Panel - Futures of HE Teaching
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’
Enjoying English: A Celebration
15.15-16.45
Plenary Session - English Matters
Speakers include Clare Lees (Institute of English Studies), Simon Kövesi (University of Glasgow), Alastair Brown (Durham University), Andrea Macrae (Oxford Brookes University), and Mathelinda Nabugodi (UCL)
Sponsored by University English
Workshop - Rewiring Minds, Worlds, and Practice through Multilingualism and Translation
Speakers: Boriana Alexandrova, Nicoletta Asciuto, Sam Coe, and Alice Flinta (University of York)
Workshop - Why You Should Be Playing Dungeons & Dragons in Your School
Led by Lucas Maxwell (Glenthorne High School)
Roundtable - Wasafiri x E:SF 2
Adrija Ghosh (University of St Andrews), Beyond the Lingua Franca: a Case for Translating a Translingual Tagore
Wangui wa Goro (SOAS), Uasafiri: in Honor of Alistair Niven and Ranjana Ash
Gabrielle Tse (University of Edinburgh), Between the Lines: Translingual Paratexts
Elena Traina and Adrian Markle (Falmouth University), Writing Europe
17.00-18.30
Word-Mead Bring
Join us for an evening of poetic celebration to mark the close of the Anthony V. Capildeo salon, with performances from Jason Allen-Paisant, Anthony V. Capildeo and Maya Caspari. A small number of short, open mic slots are also available. Sign up here!
Optional Dress Code: Bling up the North.
All are welcome to join us for Word-Mead Bring. If you’re planning to attend we would be grateful if you could book a ticket via Eventbrite to help us keep track of numbers.