Cardiff BookTalk: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

This event has ended.

Our final BookTalk event for the Spring will celebrate the bicentenary of Emily Brontë with a discussion of her only – confirmed – novel: Wuthering Heights.

When Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, one reviewer remarked that ‘the reader is shocked, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance.’ He concluded by saying ‘[w]e strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they have never read anything like it before.’

Like her intricate and avant-garde novel, Brontë fascinated and confounded many of her acquaintances and readers. Of her sister, Charlotte Brontë memorably wrote that an ‘interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world.’ Since then, Brontë’s life and her novel have been subject to endless reinterpretation by writers, filmmakers and artists from across the world.

This BookTalk event will feature three expert speakers who will shed light on the life, literary work, and cultural legacy of the woman known as the ‘sphinx of our modern literature…whose riddle no amount of research will enable us to read.’

The speakers are:

• Professor Stevie Davies, a novelist, literary critic, biographer and Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing (Swansea University) who has written extensively on the Brontës. Her publications include the acclaimed biography Emily Brontë: Heretic (1994) and the satirical novel Four Dreamers and Emily (1996). She will offer her perspective on writing a creative work centring on Wuthering Heights and its author.
• Dr Amber Pouliot (Halaxton College), a Victorianist with interests in the Brontës, Victorian afterlives and literary tourism. She will be discussing discuss incest fantasies about Emily and Branwell Brontë in interwar biofiction and biodrama.
• Dr Catherine Paula Han (Cardiff University), a Brontë and adaptation studies specialist. Her presentation will focus on the enigma of the second generation of Earnshaws, Lintons and Heathcliffs in Wuthering Heights.

The Format of Cardiff BookTalk:

Each of our speakers will present a 10-15 minute talk, explaining how their research intersects with our chosen book, and then there is an opportunity for (always lively!) audience questions and discussion. To make the most of the session, you may like to read or reread Wuthering Heights.

PLEASE NOTE THIS MONTH'S VENUE: This event will be held in the Small Chemistry Lecture Theatre in Cardiff University's Main Building. It will be preceded by a reception with tea, coffee, and biscuits at 6.30pm in the reception area of Main Building.

Tickets are free and all are welcome!