Samuel Beckett Summer School

The Samuel Beckett Summer School provides a unique experience for students, scholars and lovers of Beckett’s works. Each year we invite the world’s foremost Beckett scholars to present new lectures and seminars on all aspects of Beckett’s works. The School appeals to a wide range of Beckett enthusiasts by providing the opportunity to experience, savour and study Beckett’s works in the university where he began his intellectual life.

The Summer School is different from an academic conference in that it is not purely a gathering by specialists for other specialists. Instead, we aim to engage and explore Beckett’s works from a variety of different perspectives in order to examine and re-examine Beckett’s evolving legacy and relevance. The aim of the Summer School is to look at Beckett in an open and pluralist fashion and to consider all of the numerous contexts of his work that are of interest both to the scholar and to the general reader.

The Samuel Beckett Summer School offers a full week of learning and is complemented by social and cultural events each evening.

Each morning will feature one or two lectures by leading Beckett scholars. In the afternoons we run our week-long seminars. Each student chooses one of four seminars and stays with that seminar for the full week. Seminars include: Beckett’s Manuscripts; a Reading Group (the specific texts may change each year); Performance Workshop; and at least one special seminar whose topic will change each year (past examples include ‘Beckett and Deleuze’, ‘Beckett and Dante’, and ‘Beckett and Irish Culture, 1929–1949’). The range of seminar topics is meant to reflect the diverse ways in which Beckett’s works can be approached, and are run by experts in those particular areas.

In addition to the academic programme, we offer a range of activities, including social events, performances, field trips, an opening reception and a closing banquet. We encourage all of our speakers to attend our social events and discuss Beckett in more informal settings. Some of our additional events are open to the public and some are exclusive to participants of the Summer School.

For further information please visit Samuel Beckett Summer School.