Dear Listserv administrators, I'd appreciate distribution of the following. Thanks - Martin
 
 

Call for Papers 

 

Bill Naughton - A Centenary Conference

24th - 25th November 2009

 

Bill Naughton (1910-1992) made a huge contribution to the cultural scene in Britain in the latter half of the twentieth century.  Most people know the films Alfie (either the original or its recent remake), The Family Way and Spring and Port Wine, but many would be pushed to name their author.  But aside from these adaptations of his theatre plays Naughton also contributed substantially to radio and TV drama in the 1950s and 1960s, winning the Prix Italia for his Pinteresque radio play, The Mystery, in 1974.  He wrote around 200 short stories, too, many of which still feature in schools today, especially the collections Late Night on Watling Street and The Goalkeeper's Revenge.  He was also a novelist of note, with works like One Small Boy deserving a wider audience - though, once again, it is the novelisation of Alfie that has obscured the rest.  In his final years, however, it was as an autobiographer that he once more came into the limelight, where he reflects on his earliest days in Ireland, his later life in London, his final years in the Isle of Man - but, most prolifically, on his life in Bolton, Lancashire, in and around the 1920s.

 

Perhaps it is because of the range of his work that Naughton has never received the recognition he deserves.  There is still no monograph considering his contribution as a whole.  This conference hopes to change this state of affairs by opening up the various dimensions of his oeuvre.  In turn, it is hoped that the conference will lead to a monograph reassessing his work, drawing on the best of the papers given, to be published in the year of his centenary, 2010. 

 

The conference will be hosted jointly by the University of Bolton, Bolton Museum & Archive Service and the Octagon Theatre.  Keynote speakers are Neil Sinyard (Professor of Film Studies, University of Hull), Stephen Lacey (Professor of Drama, Film and Television at the University of Glamorgan) and David Thacker (Artistic Director designate of the Octagon Theatre, Bolton). Erna Naughton, Bill Naughton's widow, will also be attending. 

 

Please submit an abstract (max. 250 words) by April 30th 2009 to: 

 

[log in to unmask]

 

A webpage, including more details, will appear in due course.

 

Papers are welcomed on any (or a combination) of the following areas:

 

Theatre Studies

Production histories of the plays 

 

Adaptations of plays (e.g. most famously, Ayub Khan-Din's recent success with Rafta Rafta).

 

Work with Bernard Miles at the Mermaid Theatre

 

Radio & TV

TV series (Nathaniel Titlark, Starr and Company, Yorky)

 

The Radio plays

 

TV plays

 

Film Studies

Film adaptations 

 

The Alfie films

 

Literature Studies

The Children's stories

 

The Short stories 

 

The novels

 

Autobiographical studies

 

Social and Cultural History 

Constructions of Northernness, or "Northern Studies"

 

The swinging sixties

 

Mass-Observation work

 

Bolton, 1910-1940

 

The Irish connection/ the emigrant experience

 

Other Contexts

Spiritual and religious dimensions

 

Gender issues

 

Patriarchy and the maternal 

 

Place and landscape

 

Other suggestions welcome, as are suggestions for panels

 

 

Any queries, please contact: Prof. David Rudd, School of Arts Media and Education, University of Bolton, Deane Road, Bolton BL3 5AB  

Phone: 01204 903261

Email: [log in to unmask]  

or Dr Martin Flanagan, School of Arts, Media and Education. Phone: 01204 903241. Email: [log in to unmask]

 
 
 
Dr Martin Flanagan
Senior Lecturer/Course Leader, BA Film and Media Studies
University of Bolton
[log in to unmask]
01204 903241
 
 

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