IDEA and CSS reflections-2013
25.07.2013

Reflections from the Conferences
by Sibel İzmir
 
7th International IDEA Conference
The first conference I attended in 2013 was the 7th International IDEA Conference: Studies in English which was held at Pamukkale University, Denizli, between 17–19 April 2013. The conference was especially marked by the attendance of two noteworthy keynote speakers: the worldwide British novelist, Maggie Gee and Professor Gerald Prince from the University of Pennsylvania. The programme included a great variety of scientific papers in concurrent sessions which focussed not only on literatures in English but also translation studies, cultural studies and ELT. Personally, I attended the conference with a paper entitled “Physical Violence Functioning to Reflect an Epic and Marxist World view: Edward Bond's Lear”, for which I received positive feedback from the colleagues.
 
14th International Cultural Studies Symposium
The second event I participated this year was the 14th International Cultural Studies Symposium which was held at Ege University, İzmir, between 8-10 May 2013. The symposium was restricted with the topic of “Confinement, Resistance, Freedom” and held in concurrent sessions. Since the symposium was on cultural studies, the papers ranged from literature to sociology, media and political studies. My paper’s title was “Simulated Lives, Confined Individuals: Mark Ravenhill’s Faust is Dead”. With this paper, I tried to analyze how our lives are dominated and confined by modern means of technology as demonstrated in Ravenhill’s play.