12/01/2026
CFP: THE UNIVERSITY OF GDAŃSK SAMUEL BECKETT SEMINAR 2026
Research Echoes, and Neurocognitive Beckett
11 May 2026, Gdańsk, Poland
Between.Pomiędzy Festival 2026: University of Gdańsk, Poland
We invite scholars and practitioners who are eager to share their current work on the life and work of Samuel Beckett in a variety of local and global contexts. We suggest that the issues posed in the seminar title might trigger papers and discussions of a variety of works, in a variety of ways, and through a variety of approaches. We offer space for intense discussion on current academic and artistic approaches to Samuel Beckett. The seminar will culminate in a round-table discussion “Between.Europe: Ireland” with a confirmed participation of an internationally celebrated actor Clara Simpson.
The University of Gdańsk Samuel Beckett Seminar is part of the Between.Pomiędzy Festival 2026 (11-17 May), which also includes performances, a series of workshops Sharing Crafts run by Complicité (“Devised Theatre”), Clara Simpson (on Riders to the Sea by John Millington Synge), Katarzyna Pastuszak (co-ordinator), and Nicholas Johnson (an April session “A Beckett Ensemble”). There are open discussions, meetings with poets and writers, exhibitions, and other events. For more information on the Between.Pomiędzy Festival see: www.between.org.pl
As part of the seminar we propose a two hour session Neurocognitive Beckett co-organised with the Department of Neuroscience, Imaging, and Clinical Sciences, Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara (Italy). The session marks setting institutional foundations for furthering research in this field in the forthcoming years. On 11 May 2026 , the keynote address by Professor S.E. Gontarski (FSU) “Neural Circuitry, Information Transfer and the Arts of Literature and/in Performance” will be followed by lectures by Dr Angello Romagnoli (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara). We offer an invitation to scholars and practitioners who would like to join us in this event in the role of a speaker or in other forms.
Introductory remarks by S.E. Gontarski:
"From ancient gesture systems to digital archives, from neural spikes to electronic media, the arts of literature and performance operate within complex circuits of information transfer; these circuits are at once biological, technological, and cultural. To understand them requires moving beyond purely interpretive models toward an account of art as an event that unfolds across nervous systems and networks. In this sense, literature and performance do not merely reflect changes in human character; they participate in the ongoing reconfiguration of the human as a soft machine embedded in neuromatic environments. Art becomes not a representation of consciousness but one of its active conditions."
Introductory remarks by Angello Romagnoli:
"A tripartite model of spatiality in performance, grounded in experimental evidence from studies of interoception, peripersonal space and hippocampal function, constitutes a meta-framework through which diverse approaches to theatre-making can be illuminated. Two cases prove particularly amenable to such analysis: the rehearsal system developed by Belgian director Thierry Salmon and Samuel Beckett’s directorial practice as documented in his Theatrical Notebooks. The phenomenological foundations of this neurophysiological framework find a significant precedent in the early twentieth-century German debate in psychopathology, in which Neo-Kantianism and Bergsonism figured prominently. These philosophical currents were demonstrably influential on Beckett and arguably formative of his approach to staging, actor direction, and character conception and construction at large."
We invite proposals for 20-minute papers that provide insight into current Beckett scholarship and practice. The deadline for a 200-word proposal is 20 March 2026 ([email protected]). The seminar fee is 100 euros (covers coffee breaks, lunch, and participation in the Between.Pomiędzy Festival). The event is coordinated by Patrycja Zielke.
The Seminar is organised by Beckett Research Group in Gdańsk, and Between.Pomiędzy Research Group in collaboration with Florida State University (USA), the Department of Neuroscience, Imaging, and Clinical Sciences, Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara (Italy).
Financial support: University of Gdańsk, and Irish Embassy in Poland.
The Beckett Research Group in Gdańsk (BRGiG) was founded and is led by Dr hab. Tomasz Wiśniewski, Prof. UG. It is affiliated to the Department of Theatre Arts in the English and American Studies Institute at the University of Gdańsk. Its honorary patron is Professor S.E. Gontarski of Florida State University in the USA. BRGiG brings together scholars, translators and artists who are engaged in work related to Beckett. Indeed, the encounter of academic and creative worlds – searching for varied and not always complementary ways of seeing Beckett’s work – is the main axis of the activities of BRGiG. We organize regular Beckett seminars in the Tricity area, and also theatre workshops/laboratories and discussions with poets, writers, film makers, theatre workers, and visual artists. We also engage in publishing activities and support numerous artistic projects. Cooperation with the Sopot Dance Theatre has led to the production "Wszystko co widać. Ohio," and the film "All This This Here." Professor Gontarski’s laboratory work from the festival is documented in the film “…but the clouds…,” which has been shown in Poland and the USA, during the Beckett Summer School at Trinity College Dublin, and at the Charles University in Prague. In 2010, the documentary film Back to the Beckett Text (Beckett na Plaży) appeared, and at the 2019 Between.Pomiędzy Festival, S.E. Gontarski’s film "Beckett on the Baltic" had its world premiere.
Guests in the past included: Marcello Magni (co-founder of Complicité), Douglas Rintoul (Complicité), Antoni Libera (Poland), Enoch Brater (USA), H. Porter Abbott (USA), Luz María Sánchez (Mexico), Chong Wang (China), Debby Mulholland (New Zealand), Antonia Rodríguez Gago (Spain), Mark Nixon (UK), Javier Aguirre (Spain), Derek Attridge (UK), Nadia Kamel (Egypt), John Riquelme (USA), and many others.
More details on BRGiG:
https://brill.com/view/journals/sbt/37/2/article-p301_8.xml
