but the cloud

Save the date! 29th November is scheduled for the Beckett seminar, ‘Decoding Colding in Beckett.’ All the details ( registration link, programme, abstracts, and bio) can be found on the website of The Samuel Beckett Society website.

Full Programme for Decoding Colding in Beckett Seminar announced The full programme has been announced for ‘All that left me cold, or nearly’: Decoding Colding in Beckett by seminar organiser Swati Joshi. This is the second in the the Grey Pluralities in Beckett…

Dear Beckettians save 26th October 2025 for the virtual seminar, ‘All that left me cold, or nearly’: Decoding Colding in Beckett, supported by The Samuel Beckett Society! Please find the call for papers on the website of The Samuel Beckett Society.

Call for Papers: ‘All that left me cold, or nearly’: Decoding Colding in Beckett The call for papers has just been announced for the second instalment of the Grey Pluralities Seminar series which will take place on 26 October 2025. Following on from last year’s highly suc…

You can access all the details on the QR code! See you all on Friday!

Registration for our first event on the theme 'clouds' is now live! Join us this Friday 12-4pm:

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: … but the cloud… seminar one: CLOUDS. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: … but the cloud… seminar one: CLOUDS. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Fellow Beckettians! Ellie Green and Swati Joshi are glad to share the schedule of the "…but the clouds…: An Interdisciplinary Online Seminar Series Examining Grey Pluralities in Samuel Beckett."
This seminar series is supported by The Samuel Beckett Society
First theme: Clouds
This event will commence with Bixby's inspiring welcome speech followed by the intriguing keynote addresses by Salisbury, Michiko Tsushima, and James Martell... Thought-provoking artistic talk by Saun Santipreecha...
And an excellent line-up of presenters: Ryan Kerr, Lucas Margarit, Potter, Clements, and Danadaki.
We have also planned an exciting word-games session for the event!
Please refer to the documents attached to this post for more details. And feel free to get in touch with us in case of any queries.
Eagerly waiting for the 20th September!
We will be sharing the abstracts and other details very soon!

Aristophanes's The Clouds shows clouds as wise chorus, as ethereal health consultants, philosophers, political advisors....

Here is an excerpt from the play:

"Strep. Unfortunate man that I am! What a penalty shall I
this day pay to the bugs!

Cho. Now meditate and examine closely; and roll yourself
about in every way, having wrapped yourself up; and
quickly, when you fall into a difficulty, spring to
another mental contrivance. But let delightful sleep be
absent from your eyes."

When the insomniac Strepsiades seeks the help of choric clouds, their interaction paints a picture of wispy fears clouding the silhouette of night.

Here is the link to read the play:

The Clouds, by Aristophanes

Cloud facts from Anderby Creek 🌧️

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) presents the serpentine clouds making their way through Maloja Snake, purveying the metaphorical understanding of clouded perception of oneself. The landscape of Maloja Snake enveloped by downy clouds hold a mirror to the clouds of desire, insecurities, loneliness, ageing, ambition, and survival. These lines sum it all up:

"This is the Maloja Pass, down there?
- The serpent?
- The snake.
Why a snake? In the play, is ambiguous. The Maloja snake. This is a cloud formation. [...] The clouds come from the Italian lakes they pass the col and are pushed by the wind in the valley like a snake. That's why it's called the snake.
The phenomenon Cloudy Maloja.
His signs.
Clouds pass the Maloja Pass. The so-called "Snake Maloja". Wilhelm was fascinated by this film. He marveled that the true nature of the landscape was revealed in these images. It shows time passing. This film has almost a century. In fact, it comes from far away. It makes all its beauty" (Assayas 2014).

Political clouds spotted in

You can now find our cfp on UPenn, please share widely!

cfp | call for papers "Grey is flexible, malleable; it can be pushed and pulled in different directions, worked and reworked into new, unanticipated materiality and meaning. Grey is not fixed: it both reflects and absorbs light, and it extends the spectrum between black and white, between the extremes of all other colors...

Charles Baudelaire's poem, "The Voyage," to Maxime Du Camp, in Les fleurs du mal (1992) sheds light on the malleable nature of clouds:

'Ceux-là dont les désirs ont la forme des nues,
Et qui rêvent, ainsi qu’un conscrit le canon,
De vastes voluptés, changeantes, inconnues,
Et dont l’esprit humain n’a jamais su le nom!' (228)

English Translation:

'Those whose desires have the form of clouds,
And who dream, as a recruit dreams of a cannon,
Of vast, changing, and unknown raptures,
And whose name the human spirit has never known!' (231)

These clouds of modernity travel from Baudelarian world of "Painterly Inspiration" (Russell 1993) to the Beckettian world of greys...

In a 1935 letter to Tom McGreevy, Beckett writes:

"My dear Tom,
The discrepancy between mind and body is terrible.

[...]

Well, I suppose the less dirty clouds of dirty glory people trail about with them, the more likeable they are, and so the clean old man takes the eye. The doctrine of reminiscence may hold for turds" (The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929-1940, 273-275).

Here is the link to the 1993 John Russell article to The New York Times:

Review/Art; Baudelaire as Painterly Inspiration (Published 1993) AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTReview/Art; Baudelaire as Painterly InspirationShare full articleBy John RussellOct. 15, 1993Credit...The New York Times ArchivesSee the article in its original context from October 15, 1993, Section C, Page 22Buy ReprintsView on timesmach...

Our first CFP is out! Send us your abstracts by July 31st ☁️

https://samuelbeckettsociety.org/2024/05/05/new-online-seminar-series-but-the-cloud/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0MBzwfusLojpty--1VDngj0Jx0j2zmRWaHPcjtVffbtt69TPe5KvnO58E_aem_AbqbFBDgbyb8BmpWJVF8t2A8tBZODj-FNVy5WYgj9MERSRdz9vnqYax_rhMf6djHwEdPUQEpwz97J0hxEbLXmBml

New Online Seminar Series: … but the cloud… In keeping with its commitment to promote new opportunities for emerging voices within Beckett studies, the Samuel Beckett Society is delighted to announce and endorse a new and innovative online s…