Symposium Programme
Please click on the link below to register for the symposium. Registration is mandatory for those who wish to attend, whether as presenters or audience members at the symposium, or participants in the open mic event. Registration closes on May 8, 2026.
FRIDAY, 5th JUNE 2026 (Msida campus, Campus Hub, Block O, Rm 316)
08:30 – 09:15: Registration / Welcome Coffee
09:15 – 09:30: Welcome Address by Prof. James Corby
09:30 – 11:00: Panel 1 (hybrid)
11:00 – 11:15: Coffee break
11:15 – 12:45: Panel 2 (hybrid)
12:45 – 13:45: Lunch break
13:45 – 14:45: Keynote address: Prof. Patrick McGuinness: University of Oxford
14:45 – 16:15: Panel 3 (hybrid)
16:15 – 16:30: Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00: Panel 4 (hybrid)
19:15 – 21:00: Open Mic
SATURDAY, 6th JUNE 2026 (Msida Campus Hub, Block O, Rms 316, 318)
08:45 – 09:15: Registration / Welcome Coffee (MSD CHBO 316)
09:15 – 10:45: Panel 5 (MSD CHBO 316) and Panel 6 (MSD CHBO 318)
10:45 – 12:15: Panel 7 (MSD CHBO 316) and Panel 8 (MSD CHBO 318)
12:15 – 13:15: Lunch
13:15 – 14:45: Panel 9 (MSD CHBO 316) and Panel 10 (MSD CHBO 318)
14:45 – 16:15: Panel 11 (MSD CHBO 316) and Panel 12 (MSD CHBO 318)
16:15 – 16:30: Coffee Break
16:30 – 18:00: Panel 13 (MSD CHBO 316) and Panel 14 (MSD CHBO 318)
18:00 – 18:30: RE-MED Prize Giving Ceremony (MSD CHBO 316)
18:30 – 18:45: Closing Address by Dr Marija Grech (MSD CHBO 316)
This symposium will take place in the University of Malta’s Msida Campus. For any queries or further detail, please feel free to email us on englishpgsymposium@um.edu.mt.
This symposium is part of the Erasmus+ project ‘(Re-)Visiting the Mediterranean: Literature, Culture, Environment’, funded under the HE KA220 Cooperation Partnerships in Higher Education.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
PANEL 1: Nonhuman Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Melissa Mawdsley
Gianna Brahović (University of Split) – From Cloud to Soil: Arboreal Voice and Radical Listening in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees
Chrissy Ralph (Norwich University of the Arts) (online) – Searching for the voice of house: Decentering the Human through Spoken and Unspoken Practices with our Architectural Kin
Helena Paoli (University of Bari) – When Objects Speak: Stage, Voice and Resistance in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles
PANEL 2: Digital voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Jackson Mauzé
Lea Pešec (University of Graz) (online) – The Queer Gap: AI Transcription and Drag Voices
Maya Micallef Engerer (University of Malta) – The Senses and Community in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India
Rebecca Ganado (University of Malta) – Whose Voice Prevails? Editorial Gatekeeping and the Romantasy Wave
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Prof. Patrick McGuinness (University of Oxford) (MSD CHBO 316)
VOICE AND VOICES: WHAT IS CREATIVE CRITICISM? This lecture will explore Creative Criticism in its different practices and manifestations from a number of angles, with a focus on questions of voice and voicing.
Chair: Dr Aaron Aquilina
PANEL 3: Mad Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Monika Genkova
Caroline Salfinger (University of Arts Linz) (online) – Sighing Off-Key: The Blue Notes of Melancholic Deviants (Not Joining the Chorus)
Danielle van der Merwe (Heidelberg University) – ‘I come to speak. At last.’: Reconceptualising Madness Through First-Person Narratives
Jessica Meli (University of Malta) – Insane or Insightful? The Lunatic Voice as Narrative Innovation and Ethical Critique in Selected Works of Joyce, Eliot, and Woolf
PANEL 4: Marginal Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Ella Nordfeldt
Movement across Mediterranean Shores
Sarra Salhi (University of Carthage) – Voicing the Margin: Polyphony, Epistemic Injustice, and the Ethics of Listening in Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans
PANEL 5: Faithful Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Katrina Fenech
Noah Galea (University of Malta) – A Chameleon in the Garden – Echoes of Donne in Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
Warren James Borg Ebejer (M.C.A.S.T.) – Translating the In-Between: Representation and Resistance in Jacob Riyeff’s The Bosom of the Father
Phillip Kapeleris (Maynooth University) – Attending more than human kin: Ancestors, saviours, and the struggle for freedom in Report to Greco
PANEL 6: Communal Voices (MSD CHBO 318)
Chair: Jovana Mladenovic
Chrystalla Christodoulou (University of Cyprus) – Exploring Teachers’ Understandings of Disability through Oppressive and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies: Α Qualitative Study in the Cypriot Context
Phil Bonjour (University of Limerick) – ‘On vous met le feu’: Collective Voice Setting the Stadium on Fire in Marseille
Melissa Mawdsley (University of Malta) – The Voices of Martinus Scriblerus
PANEL 7: Revisionary Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Rebecca Ganado
Alessia Gentile (University of Florence) – Voices in Silence: Anthony Burgess’s The Clockwork Condition Manuscript
Sherwin Shibu (Maynooth University) – Recursive Voices: Tracing the Roots of American Psycho
Lucille Schäfer (University of Bonn) – Authenticity Beyond Equivalence: Translating Han Kang into English, German, and French
PANEL 8: Women’s Voices (MSD CHBO 318)
Chair: Shannon Gila
Tessielle Saliba (University of Malta) – Salt and Silence: Fiction and the Voices of Southern-European Mediterranean Women
Ella Nordfeldt (University of Malta) – Fantasy is Female: Analysing the Representation and Value of the Feminine Voice in High Fantasy Literature
Daniel Cini (University of Malta) – Political Witness or Prescient Storyteller? Reflections on the Atwoodian Voice
PANEL 9: Irish Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: James Moffett
Shannon Gila (Maynooth University) – The Irish Voice Shrouded in Gothic Tales
Eileen Jenkins (Maynooth University) – Guthanna na Mbán: Reclaiming Female Voices in Irish State Law and Literature
Anatoli Sofra (Maynooth University) – Confessions, Memoirs and Women’s Experience during the Greek and Irish Civil Wars
PANEL 10: Unheard Voices (MSD CHBO 318)
Chair: Tessielle Saliba
Antonio Grech (University of Malta) – Queer Isolation across Media: Failure and Discomfort
Jovana Mladenovic (University of Malta) – Token Voices: The Gap Between Visibility and Authenticity in Queer Literary Characters
Martha Tonna (University of Malta) – Silenced Subjects: Recovering the Black Voice
PANEL 11: Sensorial Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Gianna Brahović
Monika Genkova (University of Malta) – The Visual Voice in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival
Katrina Fenech (University of Malta) – ‘Guilt will confine you, torture you, and destroy you’: A Study into the Manifestations of Guilt in Horror Media Characters
Mahmoud Lamloumi (University of Carthage) – Re)voicing Trauma: Narrative Agency and Cinematic Stabilization in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and its 1985 cinematic adaptation
PANEL 12: Silent Voices (MSD CHBO 318)
Chair: Sarah Farrugia
Darragh Clarke (Maynooth University) – The Development of Voice from Voicelessness in Ghassan Kanafani’s Returning to Haifa
Domenico Ianuale (University of Naples ‘Parthenope’) – The Absent “You”: Silence and Narrative Isolation in Colm Tóibín’s One Minus One
Dylan Gough (Maynooth University) – Can You Hear Me?
PANEL 13: Wounded Voices (MSD CHBO 316)
Chair: Phillip Kapeleris
Sarah Farrugia (University of Malta) – Gifting, Stealing, Taking and Keeping: The Voice of Possession in Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep
Claudio Favazza (University of Florence) – Voices from the Wound: Madness and Trauma in Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life
James Moffett (University of Malta) – Voices of Silence: Trauma and Defiance in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, The Fall of Arthur and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
PANEL 14: Mediated Voices (MSD CHBO 318)
Chair: Antonio Grech
Maria Chiara (MC) Grech (University of Malta) – Deferring Voice: An Argument for the Impersonal
Adam Bellares (Lancaster University) – The Afterlife of a Life Story
Ulaş Ersezen (University of Malta) – The Post-internet Pose: Algorithmic Flattening of Contemporary Voices and Aesthetics