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LINDA BEN-ZvI
that a well-known, established scholar in our group mocked as being irrelevant
to Beckett studies, but that the group, after considerable and sometimes heated
but civil discussion, decided was a new, significant avenue into the study of
Beckett’s plays, one that should be explored and not dismissed out of hand.
Another feature of the Beckett Working group that set it apart from other
academic meetings was its format. Traditionally, those wishing to participate
in a conference submit abstracts and, if accepted, are placed on a panel of
three or four people researching a similar subject. At the meeting itself, they
are usually given 15—20 minutes to read their prepared essays; and at the end
of the presentations, 15-25 minutes are reserved for audience comments and
questions, although in practice since papers tend to run longer than planned,
little time, if any, is left for discussion. That means someone may spend
months researching and writing a paper, travel to a different city or even
country, and then have a quarter of an hour to present their work and a few
minutes, if they are lucky, to answer any questions or receive responses.
Not so in the Beckett Working Group. I believed that if we were true to our
name, this would be a ‘working’ group, the papers presented often works-in¬
progress, and—most important—each would be given sufficient time for the
group to express their reactions and suggest possible revisions or additions.
To achieve this end, we put a cap of twenty on the number of participants
and instituted a structure whereby the papers were sent to members of the
group one month prior to our meeting, so that they could read and consider
each essay carefully. When we met, instead of the presenter reading the entire
essay, we allotted 10-15 minutes for each to present an oral (not written)
summary of the main thesis and supporting ideas, leaving between 30-40
minutes for the group to interact with the writer and discuss each essay in
depth.
This method, I am convinced, has led to the high quality of the essays that
have emerged from our sessions and have appeared in the two prior volumes
that the Beckett Working Group has published. Drawing on Beckett: Portraits,
Performances, and Cultural Contexts’ brought together twenty-one original
essays by authors from eleven countries and presented for the first time in
one volume twenty-four sketches of Samuel Beckett executed by his good
friend, the Paris-based Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha. Beckett at 100: Revolving
It All* emerged from the 2006 scholarly and creative outpouring around the
world that marked the hundredth anniversary of Beckett’s birth; the essays
were gathered from the special Beckett Working Group chosen to be the
central academic conference convened at Trinity College Dublin, Beckett’s
Linda Ben-Zvi (ed.): Drawing on Beckett: Portraits, Performances, and Cultural Contexts,
Tel Aviv, Assaph Books, 2003.
? Linda Ben-Zvi - Angela Moorjani (eds.): Beckett at 100: Revolving It All, New York, Oxford
University, 2008.
* 10°