MATHEMATICS AND MODERN LITERATURE 2018 Thursday 3rd – Friday 4th May The #MATHMODLIT

Welcome to Mathematics and Modern Literature 2018!

We have a wonderful conference ahead of us here at The University of Manchester. In addition to our three fantastic keynote speakers—Dr Nina Engelhardt, Professor Tim Armstrong and Dr Emily Howard—we’re thrilled to feature papers ranging from the work of Sylvia Townsend Warner, Samuel Beckett and Christine Brooke-Rose, to the mathematics of randomness, infinity and statistics in relation to modern poetry and fiction. Each of our panels and keynotes promises a special insight into the diverse ways in which different writers have drawn upon and engaged with mathematics since the late nineteenth century. We know they’ll provoke a great deal of thought and discussion, both within and without the scheduled sessions themselves, and we’re extremely proud to be hosting a conference that offers such a rich opportunity for critical and creative exchange in this young yet bristling interdisciplinary field.

On the evening of the first day, Thursday 3rd May, we are delighted to further extend the scope of the discussion with a public event, In Conversation with Emily Howard: Exploring Mathematics, Music and Literature, for which we will be privileged to be joined by Dr Gemma Moss, Professor Ursula Martin and the Mathias Quartet from The Royal Northern College of Music. The event will be followed by a wine reception, open to all who attend, after which we have provided dinner at Kro Bar for the conference delegates—see below for further information!

Along with the schedule, we’ve included information about the venue and location of the conference in this programme. This information is also available on our website: mathematicsandmodernliterature.wordpress.com. However, if you have any questions or problems at all during the conference, please don’t hesitate to find either one of us and ask!

We’re very excited to meet you, and we hope you’ll enjoy hearing and discussing each of the fascinating talks and papers we’re fortunate enough to have lined up over the course of these two days. Let’s have a brilliant conference!

Chris Runciman and Zoe Gosling Conference Organisers Mathematics and Modern Literature 2018

PS. If you’re on twitter, facebook or instagram, you can use the hashtag, #MathModLit 1

MATHEMATICS AND MODERN LITERATURE 2018 Thursday 3rd – Friday 4th May The University of Manchester #MATHMODLIT

DAY ONE | THURSDAY 3RD MAY LOCATION | C.18 GRADUATE SCHOOL, ELLEN WILKINSON BUILDING

REGISTRATION AND BREAKFAST | 9.30AM – 10.15AM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

WELCOME | 10.15AM – 10.30AM

KEYNOTE EVENT | 10.30AM – 11.30AM

Nina Engelhardt Modern Mathematics and Literary Form: From Knowing to Being.

FIRST PANEL SESSION | 11.30AM – 12.45PM

Chair: Howard Booth (University of Manchester)

Amos Abrahams () Theatrical Philosophy, Mathematical Science: Understanding Samuel Beckett’s ‘Simple World’.

Hannah Cooper-Smithson (Nottingham Trent University) What Shape is a Snowflake Poem: On Crystals, Fractals, and the Symmetry of Formal Verse.

Hilary White (University of Manchester) A ‘Gallery of Monsters’: Christine Brooke-Rose’s Fractal Forms.

LUNCH | 12.45PM – 2.00PM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

SECOND PANEL SESSION | 2.00PM – 3.00PM

Chair: Arka Chattopadhyay (IIT Gandhinagar)

Alexandra Nica (Trinity College Dublin) Flatland: The Imperfections of a Mathematical Universe.

Teresa Sanders (University of Exeter and University of Bristol) The Euclid Myth: Mathematics Education and Modernist Mathematico- Philosophical (Un)Certainty in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Mr Fortune’s Maggot (1927).

2

BREAK AND COFFEE | 3.00PM – 3.35PM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

THIRD PANEL SESSION | 3.35PM – 5.00PM

Chair: Hannah Simpson ()

Bronac Ferran (Birkbeck, University of London) Lines, Circles, Zeros, Ones: The Mathematical Turn in Post-War Poetics.

Jocelyn Rodal (Pennsylvania State University) ‘A Few Sheets of Paper Covered with Arbitrary Symbols’: Literary Form, Mathematical Application

Sabine Sharp (University of Manchester) and Jacob Gower (Independent Researcher) ‘Books and Bridges’: A Presentation Dialogue on Mathematics, Language and Science Fiction in Samuel Delaney’s Babel-17.

BREAK | 5.00PM – 5.30PM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

KEYNOTE EVENT | 5.30PM – 6.30PM | THEATRE B, UNIVERSITY PLACE

Emily Howard In Conversation with Emily Howard: Exploring Mathematics, Music and Literature.

Join Gemma Moss (Lecturer in English at Birmingham City University) in conversation with Emily Howard, composer and Director of PRiSM, The Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music at The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).

Featuring live performance by the RNCM’s Mathias Quartet, plus special guest Ursula Martin, Professor of Computer Science at The University of Oxford.

WINE RECEPTION | 6.30PM – 7.30PM | FIRST FLOOR FOYER, UNIVERSITY PLACE

DINNER (COLD BUFFET) | 7.30PM | KRO BAR

•

3

DAY TWO | FRIDAY 4TH MAY LOCATION | C.18 GRADUATE SCHOOL, ELLEN WILKINSON BUILDING

BREAKFAST AND COFFEE | 09.45AM – 10.15AM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

FOURTH PANEL SESSION | 10.15AM – 11.30AM

Samuel Beckett’s Mathematical Methods

Chair: Daniela Caselli (University of Manchester)

Helen Bailey (University of Reading) Milton, Maths and Music: Beckett’s Harmony of Numbers.

William Davies (University of Reading) ‘Could but those seconds have been numbered’: Mathematics and Memory in Beckett’s ‘The Way’.

Hannah Simpson (University of Oxford) ‘Not for me these Grotowskis and Methods’: Mathematical and Emotional Expression in Samuel Beckett’s Quad.

BREAK | 11.30AM – 11.45AM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

FIFTH PANEL SESSION | 11.45AM – 12.45PM

Chair: Sabine Sharp (University of Manchester)

Pritha Kejriwal (Birkbeck, University of London) A Badiouan/Set Theoretical Inquiry into the Poetry of Pablo Neruda.

Anirudh Sridhar (University of Oxford) The Metaphysical Revival: Mathematics in Modernist Poetry.

LUNCH | 12.45PM – 2.00PM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

SIXTH PANEL SESSION | 2.00PM – 3.15PM

Chair: Zoe Gosling (University of Manchester)

Arka Chattopadhyay (IIT Gandhinagar) Mathematical Possibilities in Modernism: Can Literature Be A System?

Daniel Cartwright (University of Westminster) The Oulipo, Bourbaki and Mathematical Critique.

4

Gordon Collins and Harry Denniston (University of East Anglia) Borges, Calvino and Reading the Infinite.

BREAK | 3.15PM – 3.45PM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

SEVENTH PANEL SESSION | 3.45PM – 5.00PM

Chair: Chris Runciman (University of East Anglia)

Ioanna Kostopoulou (Humboldt University) Calculating Modernity: Statistics and Theory of Probability in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities.

Hugh Culik (Independent Researcher) The Aesthetics of Containment.

Brendan Gillott () Random Poetry? Reading Chance, Randomness and the Non-Compressible in Late Modernism.

KEYNOTE EVENT | 5.00PM – 6.00PM

Tim Armstrong ‘A Transfinite Syntax’: Modernism and the Mathematics of the Continuum.

WINE RECEPTION | 6.00PM | GRADUATE SCHOOL ATRIUM

• •

Organised by

Zoe Gosling (University of Manchester) | Chris Runciman (University of East Anglia)

5

Venue Information

Buildings and Rooms

The conference will take place on the Ground and First Floors of the Graduate School, located in the Ellen Wilkinson Building at The University of Manchester.

The Ellen Wilkinson Building has several entrances; the one closest to the Graduate School is Entrance C.

The building is wheelchair accessible, with a ramp and power-assisted doors at the front entrance. The First Floor can be accessed via a lift and power-assisted doors. There are accessible, gender neutral toilet facilities on the Ground Floor of the Graduate School.

Please see your campus map for the locations of University Place and Kro Bar.

Prayer Rooms

The University has a number of prayer rooms, including one in the Ellen Wilkinson Building (C2.7).

Wifi Password

If you require a wifi password/cannot access eduroam, please speak to us and we will be able to provide you with access. 6