Event directors

Claudia Ferradas Moi is tenured lecturer in English Literature at the Instituto de Enseñanza Superior en Lenguas Vivas 'Juan Ramón Fernández', Buenos Aires, and has recently joined the Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina. She is also an on-line tutor for the Virtual University of Quilmes and Cultural Programme Co-ordinator at the English Speaking Scholastic Association of the River Plate (ESSARP). She has run teacher development courses and presented at conferences in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, the USA, Portugal, Germany, Ireland and the UK. She has published a number of articles on literature, rock poetry and hypertext fiction and has written teaching materials on contemporary UK writers for the British Council Argentina. She is the author of Rock Poetry in the Creative Language Classroom (DL Books, Buenos Aires, 1994) and one of the contributors to Developing Materials for Language Teaching (ed. Brian Tomlinson, Continuum, London and N.Y, 2003). Claudia co-chaired the Oxford Conference in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Sean Matthews joined the School of English Studies at the University of Nottingham in February 2005.  His primary interests are in contemporary literature and theory.  He has previously held positions at the School of English and American Studies at the University of East Anglia (EAS); University of Wales, Aberystwyth; University of California, Los Angeles; and Kyushu University, Japan. He is currently writing projects involving Raymond Williams and the New Left; the British novel of the 1980s; and a revisiting of I. A. Richards's Practical Criticism. For 2003/4 Sean was awarded a UEA teaching fellowship in order to explore the integration of literature teaching and learning technology and in April 2004 co-chaired the Oxford Conference.

John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies at the University of Nottingham and holds regular Visiting Professor posts in Brazil, China, France, Malaysia, Spain and the USA. With Ronald Carter he is co-author of the Routledge History of English Literature. He has also written on a wide range of literary and linguistic subjects and is author of Now Read On, a course in multicultural reading (1999), The Language of Poetry (1998) and The Routledge Guide to Modern English Writing (with Ronald Carter, 2004), all published by Routledge. With Ronald Carter he is series editor of Penguin Student Editions, which now numbers over 20 titles.

Alan Pulverness is an Associate Trainer with the Norwich Institute for Language Education, and was Editor of IATEFL Conference Selections from 1999 to 2004. He has worked as a consultant on language and culture materials development projects for the British Council in Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland. He is the author of All in a Word: literature in language teaching (Bell Educational Trust 1989) and co-author of a number of ELT textbooks.  He has edited a schools’ edition of Macbeth (Società Editrice Internazionale 2000) and was editorial adviser for The Literary Labyrinth (Società Editrice Internazionale 1993) and The World Wide Reader (Oxford University Press & La Nuova Italia 2001). His most recent publications are 'Materials for Cultural Awareness' in Developing Materials for Language Teaching (Continuum 2003) and The TKT Course (Cambridge University Press 2005). Alan co-chaired the Oxford Conference in 2002 and 2003.

Contributors

Patience Agbabi
Poet and performer
Interview from the New Writing 12 website

Ronald Carter
Professor of Modern English Language, University of Nottingham
Ron Carter started the Oxford Conference 20 years ago.

Peter Childs
Deputy Head, School of Humanities, University of Gloucestershire
Academic specialising in post-colonial and 20th-century literature.

Valentine Cunningham
Critic and Professor of English Language and Literature, Oxford University

Margaret Drabble
Author
'Public Speech and Public Silence', lecture delivered on October 18, 2001, in the Gulbenkian Lecture Hall in Oxford.

Martyn Goff
Administrator of the Man Booker Prize and chair of the advisory committee
'Fiction Man', Guardian article by John Sutherland (Monday October 14, 2002)

W N Herbert
Senior Lecturer, School of English Language, Literature and Linguistics
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
'Writing about survival' – an article by W.N. Herbert from the Blinking Eye Publishing website

Ali Smith
Author and editor of New Writing 13
Interview with readers from encompassculture

D J Taylor
Author
E-mail correspondence with Philip Hensher on experimental writing from Pretext Vol. 6

Colm Tóibín
Author
'Songs of Experience' Guardian profile (March 2004)

Acknowledgements
The British Council is most grateful to all those who are contributing to this event. Particular thanks are due to Claudia Ferradas Moi, Sean Matthews, Alan Pulverness and John McRae.