Robinson Crusoe Revisited: Literary and Intermedial Legacies of the ‘First Novel in English’

Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participating in or organizing an event at an external academic organisation

Description

In tribute to the tercentenary of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), the 9th edition of the symposium of the Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC) addresses some of the literary and intermedial legacies of and responses to this very first novel in English.
Three centuries after its appearance in print, Defoe’s fictional autobiography of the English mariner Robinson Crusoe survives in popular memory as the story of Crusoe’s shipwreck on an uninhabited island in the Americas, although the novel is as much about Crusoe’s spiritual growth as it is about his adventures at sea and in the New World. Robinson Crusoe was not only the earliest novel in English, but also gave birth to a new subgenre, as it inspired authors from across the world to write adaptations in various languages. Contemporary ‘Robinsonades’ include works by J.M. Coetzee, Muriel Spark, Michel Tournier and Derek Walcott, to name but a few of the most notable writers. Since the late 20th century Crusoe’s colonial relationship with the inhabitants of the New World has been rewritten especially from postcolonial and migrant perspectives, whether by closely addressing Defoe’s text or even by simply shifting the narrative focus from Crusoe-like figures to (formerly) colonized characters.
Period29 Nov 2019
Event typeConference
Conference number9
LocationBrussel, Belgium
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Related content