The Everyday and the Archive

Tuesday 23 October 2012, 5.30PM

Speaker(s): Professor Michael Sheringham, All Souls College, Oxford

The lecture will be followed by a workshop on Wednesday 24th October at 1pm in the Treehouse, Berrick Saul Building. All are welcome to attend.

Michael Sheringham is a pioneer in the field of everyday life studies. His earlier scholarship has addressed Beckett and Breton, as well as the whole rich tradition of French autobiography; more recently, his focus has shifted to archival memory. His "Everyday Life: Theories and Practices from Surrealism to the Present" (Oxford, 2006) is the most comprehensive, and certainly the most elegant, account of the French school of everyday life studies available.

Crucially, Sheringham's work on the topic ranges across figures from art and literature, like the Surrealists and George Perec, as well as giants of sociology like Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau, to demonstrate that everyday life studies is inherently interdisciplinary. Moreover, Sheringham synthesises these strands to offer an original account of the challenges posed by the everyday to literary and philosophical representation, as well as its bearing on the question of the limits of genre, which remains central to contemporary debate over interdisciplinarity in the academy.

His lecture will address the intersection of two highly topical areas of research in the humanities: memory studies and everyday life studies.

The workshop will offer an opportunity to engage in open discussion with Prof. Sheringham about the issues canvassed here, and is open to staff and students from every discipline.

For further details, please contact Benjamin Madden at benjamin.madden@york.ac.uk

Location: Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building

Admission: All welcome