21.50

Asked by psychologist Jean Piaget where he dreamed, a young boy replied "in my mouth". The mouth is indeed a theatre of dreams, in which ambivalent corporeal desires and fantasies are played out. The arena of eating, speaking, breathing and erotic desire, the mouth is both a cavern of magical transformation and a cauldron of rage and menace. This talk will use the metamorphoses of the letter M - in mutters and murmurs, rumours, hums, rumbles and mumbles, the most minimal yet also the most ‘mouthy’ of all speech sounds - to illuminate the magical thinking that attaches to the mouth, that dream auditorium of speech.

Speaker:

Steven Connor is a writer, critic and broadcaster, and the Academic Director of the London Consortium. He is the author of books on Dickens, Beckett, Joyce, ventriloquism, skin, flies, air and other topics in literary and cultural history. His most recent books are 'Paraphernalia: The curious lives of magical things' (2011) and 'A Philosophy of Sport' (2011), and he is at work on a book entitled 'Broken Voices'. His website, www.stevenconnor.com, includes lectures, broadcasts, unpublished work and work in progress.

Tickets will be available on the night, and issued on a first-come, first-served basis.