The international conference on Samuel Beckett and Technology, organised by the Centre for Irish Studies (Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures), was hold at the Faculty of Arts in Prague on 13 – 15 September 2018. The aim of the conference was to explore the manifold intersections of technology with Beckett’s oeuvre throughout the years, including the development of modern technologies in the fields of communication, broadcasting, medicine, and transportation in the beginning of the 20th century and their influence on Beckett’s early writing; his employment of new media such as film, radio, and television; and contemporary uses of digital, medical, and other technologies in new approaches to staging, performing, and interpreting Beckett’s work in various genres and fields.
Keynote lectures were delivered by Jonathan Bignell (University of Reading), Nicholas Johnson (Trinity College Dublin), Sarah Kenderdine (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne), and Laura Salisbury (University of Exeter). The programme included the European premiere of IMAGINATION DEAD IMAGINE, composed by Michael Roth and performed by Quartet Nouveau, a reception hosted by H.E. Charles Sheehan, Ambassador of Ireland to the Czech Republic, and a special screening at the Ponrepo cinema.
The conference was attended by researchers from all over the world, including Canada, Japan, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Photographs by Jana Gridneva.
