Brandeis Novel Symposium 2024: Anna Burns' "Milkman"
The Brandeis Novel Symposium will be held on Friday, October 25, 2024 from 1-6 p.m. in the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall at the Women's Studies Research Center. This year's conference will feature Anna Burns's "Milkman" (2018).
Welcome to the Brandeis Novel Symposium. Each year, this one-day conference has a dual focus: both on a particular novel and on theoretical and scholarly questions raised by the novel more generally. This year's featured text is Anna Burns’s "Milkman" (2018). Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Anna Burns is the author of three novels, "No Bones" (2001), "Little Constructions" (2020), and "Milkman," for which she won the Man Booker Prize in 2018. Set in an unnamed nation during a period of political conflict extremely reminiscent of Northern Ireland's Troubles, "Milkman" raises important questions regarding power, consent, and personal responsibility during times of national struggle.
As in previous years, our papers and discussions will set the central text in relation to the broader theoretical, formal, and historical issues it raises. Presenters will address its connection to the Irish novel, the historical novel, and world literature; the representation of sexual violence and political activism; and the policing and transgression of geopolitical boundaries.
Featured Speakers
PhD Candidate in English, University of California, Berkeley
Professor of English, University of Connecticut
PhD Candidate in English, University of Washington, Seattle
Associate Professor of English, The College of New Jersey
Associate Professor of English, University of Illinois Chicago
Professor of English, College of the Holy Cross
Associate Professor of English, University of New Mexico
Professor of English, James Madison University
Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Williams College