David Mitchell
In September 2009 I delivered a conference paper at the David Mitchell conference organised by Dr Sarah Dillon and sponsored by the arts and humanities publisher Gylphi. The conference was an incredible experience and launched a series of conferences dedicated to living writers, in which the writers themselves are invited to attend all the panels as well as delivering a reading and responding to a public Q&A. David Mitchell was extremely gracious at the conference and subsequently allowed me an interview in London which was published in the New Statesman.
My chapter, “Strange Transactions: Utopia, Transmigration and Time in Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas” was included in the edited collection that followed the conference, David Mitchell Critical Essays, ed. Sarah Dillon (which you can preview or buy either from Gylphi’s publishing site or on Amazon). The conference had attracted the attention of LA Times journalist Carolyn Kellogg in a comment piece about the “charmingly arcane” nature of academic criticism, to which Guardian contributor Sam Jordison responded in a defence of the book in an article exploring the relevance – and enjoyability – of academic literary criticism.
‘This book of essays is actually fun – and that’s something I’m surprised to write about literary theory.’
– Sam Jordison (Guardian Books Blog, 1 July 2011)
Dr Caroline Edwards is Senior Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research and teaching specialisms are in 21st century literature and critical theory, science fiction and post-apocalyptic narratives, Marxist aesthetics, and utopianism.
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