2014 Events

Events

William Burroughs at 100: part 1 ‘nothing is true…’
on Sat 13th December 2014

Join us for an evening of spoken word, poetry, live experimental music and audio visual cut up performances to celebrate William Burroughs’ 100th year, featuring 5 live performances from CP. Lee, Michael Horovitz and Vanessa Vie, Lauren Bolger and David McLean, Ruaridh Law (TVO /Broken20 audio/visual label) and Soft Machines featuring 2 Koi Karp.

William Burroughs at 100: part 2 ‘…everything is permitted’
on Sun 14th December 2014

International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester. Sun 14th December 2014
William Burroughs 100th anniversary 2 day event, Part 2: Guest Talks, Discussions and Film Screenings

William S. Burroughs: Animals in the Wall
Londonewcastle Project Space

28th August  – 7th September 2014

William S. Burroughs is recognized as one of the most culturally influential writers and visionaries of the 20th Century and his legacy continues to steer world culture and creative thinking. A progenitor of the Beat Generation, his writing and ideas changed literature forever. Burroughs’ multi-media collaborations spawned new directions in film and music and his art is only now being properly discovered and explored. His works come alive in new ways each day and his legacy is constantly evolving.

Guerrilla Zoo is proud to announce exclusive access to a unique collection of William S. Burroughs artistic works, curated by James Elphick and Yuri Zupančič.

Animals in the Wall exhibition showcases a new side to Burroughs’ exciting work and premieres in the artistic hub of East London.The exhibition will feature 40 original William S Burroughs art works including some never before shown, featuring original responses from well known and emerging artists including

Shepard FaireyMatt Black (of Coldcut), Cleon PetersonBen FrostDreamachine installation & more.

William S. Burroughs – Animals in the Wall
Open to public from
Friday 29th August – Sunday 7th September 2014 
11.00 am – 7.00 pm
Londonewcastle Project Space
28 Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London E2 7DP

On Display in the Special Collections Gallery at the University of Delaware

January 28th – June 13th, 2014

The Special Collections Library at the University of Delaware is currently presenting a special exhibit in honor of William S. Burroughs’ centenary.  This excellent exhibit draws from the library’s extensive holdings of Burroughs, Bowles, and Gysin materials, as well as their collection of underground/little magazines.  The library has created a very good website that offers a virtual visit to the exhibit.  Go to University of Delaware Library Special Collections and click on current exhibit.

William Burroughs’ Cut-Up Trilogy Restored:
The editor in conversation with the archivists
3.00-4.30 PM, April 26, 2014

Oliver Harris will be discussing his new Restored editions of Burroughs’ trilogy, The Soft Machine, Nova Express, and The Ticket That Exploded with the archival librarians Anne Garner of the NYPL and Karla Nielsen of Columbia University.

EBSN Panel at BAAS, 11 April 2014

At the 59th Annual Conference of the British Association for American Studies, held at Birmingham University, there will be a special EBSN panel, while two more EBSN members—Rona Cran and Melanie Eis—will be presenting papers on another panel that same day.

The EBSN Panel, chaired by Oliver Harris, has three papers:

Véronique Lane (Keele University), “National Identity in Beat Image-Making: Burroughs and Gide”

Douglas Field (University of Manchester), “In the Manchester Jeff Nuttall Archives: Tracing a Counter-Cultural Polymath”

Ceren Sengezer (University of Birmingham), “Allen Ginsberg’s Lectures on William Shakespeare”

At the “American Poetry Panel,” Rona Cran will be presenting a paper entitled “‘the uptown poets and the downtown poets’: inter-coterie poetics in mid-century New York,” and Melanie Eis will be presenting her paper, entitled “‘Seeking Jazz or Sex or Soup’: Public Performances of Emotionality in Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl.’”

 March 21, 2014 “Wood in Changing Culture Symposium”

Keynote by Chad Weidner

Chad Weidner will give a keynote address at the multidisciplinary “Wood in a Changing Culture” symposium in Fujian province, China on March 21 2014. The World Wood Day Foundation is an international non-profit organization that aims to raise public awareness of wood as an eco-friendly material.

The Burroughs Century, February 5-9, 2014

Scholars, artists, performers, and fans converged in snowy Bloomington, Indiana, to celebrate the life and work of William S. Burroughs, who would have turned 100 on February 5. The Burroughs Century was organized by our gracious hosts at Indiana University: a week’s worth of events took place both on campus and around Bloomington. It was a multimedia, interdisciplinary affair that included a film series, readings, lectures, performances, and a birthday bash featuring a bug-shaped cake. Materials were on display from the newly acquired Burroughs archive at Florida State University, and the famous On the Road scroll could be seen at IU’s Lilly Library along with other Beat Generation artifacts.

A three-day-long symposium brought together Burroughs scholars from around the world. In addition to the panel sessions, there were talks by Jorge Garcia-Robles and Jack Sargent and a keynote address given by Oliver Harris. Events concluded in splendid fashion with a costume party at the Back Door Nightclub in downtown Bloomington, complete with spinning Dreamachines, Burroughs-inspired cocktails, a performance by Davis Schneiderman, and a midnight séance. I’ll leave it up to others to decide whether Burroughs was contacted or not, but the author’s centennial celebration—its organizers, participants, and attendees—was proof that his legacy is alive and well in the twenty-first century.

February 15, 2014

“Burroughs at 100 Radio Programme” on BBC Radio 4

“Here comes Johnny Yen again, With the liquor and drugs, And the Flesh Machine.”

Iggy Pop reflects on Burroughs’ extraordinary life with close friends and artists that felt his influence. Contributors include James Grauerholz, Will Self, Victor Bockris, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Genesis P-Orridge and John Waters.

Producer: Colin McNulty
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

February 15, 2014

BEYOND THE CUT-UP: WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS AND THE IMAGE

This conference Beyond the Cut-up: William S. Burroughs and the Image will explore new theoretical interventions and accounts of Burroughs’s ideas of the image, its effects and modes of operation, its impact on human consciousness, its complex embedding within textual and other fields, its psychological and ideological transformations of perception.