Our friends at the British Library are holding a wonderful series of listening events exploring the work of writer and radio producer Louis MacNeice. Each of these radio programmes from the archives will be introduced briefly by Amanda Wrigley, the curator of the season, and will be followed by discussion with an expert in MacNeice and the programme under discussion, exploring how each piece works as a piece of radio and how it fits into the cultural landscape of the time and MacNeice’s wider radio oeuvre. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A.
Entry is free. Booking will open via the British Library’s Box Office, but it is also acceptable to arrive on the day, at 6pm in the Foyle Suite, Centre for Conservation, British Library. This is a public event and everyone is welcome.
6pm Thursday 2 June 2016
Louis MacNeice’s Persons from Porlock (1963): A Poet Interrupted…?
Followed by panel discussion and Q&A with Paul Long (Professor of Media and Cultural History, Birmingham City University).
6pm Thursday 9 June 2016
Louis MacNeice, America and the War: Christopher Columbus (1942)
Followed by panel discussion and Q&A with Dr Peter Golphin (The Open University).
6pm Thursday 16 June 2016
Louis MacNeice’s radio features on India and Pakistan in 1948
Followed by panel discussion and Q&A with Aasiya Lodhi (Lecturer in Radio and Journalism, University of Westminster).
John Wyver (Principal Research Fellow, University of Westminster / Illuminations) has written a review of the first event in this series, Modernity and the Past in Louis MacNeice’s Portrait of Athens (1951), which was part of last week’s University of Westminster / British Library conference Radio Modernism: Features, Cultures and the BBC last week: http://www.illuminationsmedia.