Kingston Philosophy Café

During Kingston Readers' Festival, Philosophy Cafe features a talk on writing by Professor Steven Connor. When philosophy tries to think seriously about the act and fact of literary writing, it tends to make them out to be very earnest matters - Steven Connor will maintain that  playful and comic writing is to be taken just as seriously as other kinds, but also defend the view that writing is intrinsically and essentially ridiculous.

Steven Connor is Professor of Modern Literature and Theory, Birkbeck College, London and Academic Director of the London Consortium, a Graduate Programme in Humanities and Cultural Studies taught in collaboration between Birkbeck, Tate, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Architectural Association and the Science Museum. He is a writer and broadcaster for radio and the author of books on Dickens, Beckett, Joyce and post-war British fiction, as well as of Postmodernist Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989, 2nd edn 1996), Theory and Cultural Value (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), The Book of Skin (London: Reaktion, 2003) and Fly (London: Reaktion, 2006). His forthcoming book Next to Nothing is an historical poetics of the air. His website at www.stevenconnor.com includes lectures, broadcasts, unpublished work and work in progress.

Tickets for this event from the Rose Theatre box office on 0871 230 1552 or in person or via www.rosetheatrekingston.org. This event is supported by Kingston Adult Education in celebration of Adult Learners' Week, and a limited number of free tickets is available to bona fide Kingston Adult Education students - please contact Barrie Selwyn.

*NB, slightly later finish time than usual, to miss the audience arriving for a theatre performance. We are asked to leave quietly in order not to disturb the play.