Rosanne Bezerra de Araújo

I am an English Literature Lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages and Related Literature at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. My doctoral thesis, which I completed at the University of Nottingham and the Federal University of Paraiba was on ‘Nihilism in Contemporary Literature’, with a focus on Samuel Beckett. In 2012, I published the book Niilismo heroico em Samuel Beckett e Hilda Hilst: fim e recomeço da narrativa, a comparative study between Beckett’s prose and Hilst’s narratives. I am a member of the ‘Samuel Beckett Research Group’ at the University of São Paulo.

This year, I am carrying out a postdoctoral research as a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of European Culture and Languages, University of Kent. In my research, I investigate the late theatrical works of Beckett.

Titu (Thirthankar Chakraborty)

I first read Beckett’s plays in Pondicherry, India, as part of my French course in school. As I was then also studying Indian philosophy, I found a lot of symbolic meanings behind the comic absurdist conversations: concepts of Purusha and Prakriti, functions of the three gunas, the Buddhist nirvana, Shankara’s neti neti, and more. By the time I completed my Masters at Durham University, I realised that Beckett might never have intended any such parallels, despite his familiarity with Arthur Schopenhauer, who refers to the Upanishads on numerous occasions.

Since then, I changed my approach to Beckett’s works and I am currently working on my doctorate at the University of Kent, with Professor Shane Weller as my supervisor. As part of my research, I examine Beckett’s circulation amongst modern and contemporary Indian novelists, playwrights, and in cinema.

Selvin Yaltir

I am a PhD candidate in English Literature at Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey and am currently carrying out research at the University of Kent as part of my doctoral studies. I am looking into Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre with an emphasis on the idea of the comic specific to his work. My point of focus is the connection between the kind of laughter incited by Beckett’s work and the possibility of a non-representational frame of thinking. One of the first intuitions prompting my research has been the current world’s obsessive engagement with the spirit of the comic in the social and cultural domain ranging from cynicism to learned irony to ‘laughter as a means of resistance’. To this effect, I reflect on the comic aspect in Beckett and explore how it might or might not, usefully or problematically connect to the different gestures and definitions of the comic we see elsewhere. I am also particularly interested in the relationship between continental philosophy and literature.

In the recent past, I have worked in theatre as a dramaturge in two stage productions, both of which premiered in İstanbul and were directed by Emre Koyuncuoglu: David Harrower’s Blackbird and Sevim Burak’s Afrika Dansı.