Recovering the Truth: B .S. Johnson and British Literature from the
Late 1950s to the Early 1970s (A One-Day International Conference)
Saturday November 20th, 2004, London Metropolitan University, North Campus.
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Keynote Speakers will include:
- Jonathan Coe, Novelist and B. S. Johnson biographer
- Dr. Philip Tew, Author of B. S. Johnson: A Critical Reading (Manchester UP, 2001)
Event jointly organized by:
- The UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies
- Dr. Rod Mengham (Reader in English, Jesus College, Cambridge)
- Dr. Philip Tew (Reader in English and Aesthetics, Director of the Centre for Critical
Practice, School of English, University of Central England in Birmingham)
- Dr. Peter Wilson (Principal Lecturer and Programme Director for English and Creative
Writing, London Metropolitan University)
Event Topics:
The subject of intense renewed critical interest in the past few years, London novelist Bryan Stanley
William Johnson (1933 - 1973) was one of the most renowned and yet contentious of published novelists
emerging in the 1960s. His literary fiction was based upon a dialectical, critical and autobiographical
version of his own life experience as a working class Londoner, who studied at Birkbeck and King's College
as a mature student. He was a novelist, dramatist, trade union journalist, poetry editor, poet, film and
television programme maker and 60s Renaissance man.
Generally lost to the canon since his death in 1973, Johnson has recently been the subject of recovery
and increasing interest. Jonathan Coe, a major contemporary British novelist who holds a PhD in Literature
from Warwick University, has completed a biography of Johnson which is published by Picador in 2004, alongside
the republication of three of Johnson's novels in an omnibus edition. The Institute of Contemporary Arts in
London is featuring a series of events in conjunction with Picador, which includes a retrospective of Johnson's
writing, and his film and televisual work. Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry (1973) was released in 2002 as a
feature film starring Nick Moran. Conference coordinator, Dr. Philip Tew, is the leading Johnson scholar with
his B. S. Johnson: A Critical Reading published by Manchester UP in 2001, and a detailed overview essay on Johnson
in The Review of Contemporary Fiction published in Spring 2002. The UK Network conference is intended to draw
together these recent indications of renewed interest in order to interrogate them, and also to celebrate the
prolonged loan of Johnson's personal papers to a major institution (under negotiation).
The conference is designed to accommodate all features of Johnson's life, work and milieu. These include: the
London, and particularly Islington, environments and experiences which he described; the writers of his period,
especially those who were associated with him, such as Rayner Heppenstall, Ann Quin, Robert Nye, and Margaret
Drabble; the theory influencing his period (Johnson, living in Upper Street, Islington during the late 1950s and
throughout the 1960s, part of the vibrant North London counter-cultural milieu which also saw Herbert Marcuse's
visit to the 'Dialectics of Liberation' conference at the Roundhouse in Camden Town in 1968); considerations of
the ideological struggles of this period; and possible, historical and cultural, reasons for the critical effacement
of Johnson in the first twenty years after his last, posthumous, novel, See the Old Lady Decently (1975).
It is likely that people from Johnson's circle may visit the conference, as well as many of the leading scholars
in the relevant literary-critical fields. Islington was Johnson's milieu for most of his adult life, and the conference
venue at the Islington campus of the London Metropolitan University in Holloway Road will provide an ideal locus for
this reconsideration of his work. It lies at the centre of the setting of Albert Angelo (1964).
The conference will be a collaborative venture between a number of organizations including: the London Metropolitan
University in conjunction with the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, and the Centre for Critical Practice, School
of English, University of Central England in Birmingham. The London Metropolitan University is generously hosting the event.
Fees:
Conference fee payable to 'London Network for Modern Fiction Studies': academics and public £35; postgraduates,
retired and benefits £15; London Metropolitan staff and students free. Rates apply until September 30th 2004 after
which a £15 surcharge (£10 for postgraduates) will apply. Sterling cheques / money orders only to Dr. Philip
Tew, UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, 22a Fairmead Road, Tufnell Park, London, N19 4DF, UK.
Travelling to the conference:
The venue at the London Metropolitan University North Campus is 100 metres from the exit of Holloway Road underground
station (Piccadilly Line) with direct access from Heathrow by tube and a ten-minute tube journey from King's Cross / St.
Pancras mainline station (adjacent to the New British Library). Details of cheap local hotels can be supplied on request.
Queries by e-mail only to:
Dr. Philip Tew
Reader in English and Aesthetics
University of Central England in Birmingham
philip.tew@uce.ac.uk
or tewp@ukf.net
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