Harold Pinter/Sarah Kane

The International Harold Pinter Society welcomes proposals for its panel at the 2024 Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture. 2024 will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Sarah Kane’s death. To honor her memory and artistic legacy, this year’s panel will analyze the relationship between Harold Pinter and Sarah Kane. Perhaps an unlikely pairing, the two playwrights respected each other immensely. Their plays frequently explore the darker side of human interactions, creating intense stage explorations of emotional and physical torture, violence, ironies, and fear. Yet, it could be argued that both Pinter and Kane sought to transcend these extreme states, respectively investigating human dignity and the conditions that make love necessary. More broadly, the panel is an opportunity to reflect on how Pinter’s artistic and political contributions informed how Kane and her contemporaries represented issues such as violence, familial relationships, political oppression, mental health, and physical intimacy. Alternatively, we invite papers that examine how Kane and her contemporaries critically engaged with Pinter’s aesthetic. We look forward to discussions that imagine how pairing Harold Pinter and Sarah Kane can inspire new theatrical forms or modes of creative expression.   

For more information about the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, please visit https://thelouisvilleconference.com/. For more information about the International Harold Pinter Society, please visit https://www.pintersociety.org/.

Please submit 250 work abstracts and an abbreviated C.V. to haroldpintersociety@gmail.com by September 10, 2023. Papers will be published in the 2024 issue of The Harold Pinter Review. We plan to host one panel in-person and one panel online to accommodate scholars who may not be able to attend the conference.