Date: Thursday 5th – Friday 6th September 2019

Location: The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

Tickets: Available at thebritishacademy.ac.uk/conferences A registration fee is payable at the time of booking. Concessions available. Lunch included.

Standard Admission: £75 both days, £40 one day. Includes lunch and refreshments.

Concessions: £35 both days, £20 one day. Includes lunch and refreshments.
The concession rate applies to: unwaged / retired / early career academics (within three years of completing PhD) / students / disabled.

2019 sees the close of the first UK Poet Laureateship held by a woman, the contemporary British poet, Carol Ann Duffy. This conference evaluates the significance of her life and career in terms of their literary and political legacies, and their importance for gendered and sexual identities. It will debate the purpose and value of the Laureateship itself, and the future of British poetry.

It evaluates forty-five years of her literary work in the light of ten years of her public engagement with the people of the United Kingdom and the world as the country’s literary figurehead. Three aspects of Duffy’s creative identity are emphasised: her literary, specifically her poetic legacy, her political legacy (relating to local, national and international activism) and the legacy of her life and work for women and the development of queer identities. In addition to its specific focus on this Poet Laureate’s life and work, the conference culminates in a panel discussion featuring experts from the media, publishing and poetry industries. It will debate the purpose and value of the Laureateship itself, and the future of British poetry, for example in the context of Brexit.

Dr Angelica Michelis, Senior Lecturer in English at Manchester Metropolitan University, is among the speakers. Angelica's research interests are in nineteenth century literature and culture; the Gothic; contemporary poetry; psychoanalytic criticism; Critical Theory, food/eating in relation to culture and literature; gender and women studies.