Friday 2 September 2022
12.00-14.00 Registration
14.00-14.15 Welcome
14.15-15.45 Panel A: Animating the rabbit: production, genre and representation in the 1978 film adaptation of Watership Down
‘Revisiting the production of Watership Down through the Arthur Humberstone Animation Archive’
Klive Humberstone (independent), Nigel Humberstone (independent), and Chris Pallant (Canterbury Christ Church University)
‘Prince with a Thousand Faces: Shifting Art Styles and the Depiction of Violence in Watership Down’
Sam Summers (Middlesex University London)
‘“Won’t somebody please think of the bunnies?” On rabbits, genre and suitability for children’
Catherine Lester (University of Birmingham)
15.45-16.15 Special Guest: John Rateliff
‘“Unrighteous, Unrabbitlike, and Inhuman”: Le Guin, Adams, and Lockley’
16.15-16.30 Tea/coffee
16.30-17.30 Keynote 1: Rosamond Mahony
17:30-18:00 Book signing with Rosamond Mahony (University book shop)
Saturday 3 September 2022
9.00-10.00 Keynote 2: Dr Briony Wickes
“Chewing the Cud: Rabbits, Reingestion, and Life Among The Ruins in Richard Adams’s Watership Down”
10.00-10.20 Tea/coffee
10.20-12.00 Panel B: Watership Down in Other Media
‘Watership Down, Bunnies and Burrows, and the World of Role-Playing Games’
Scott R. Robinson (Pacific Ethological Laboratories) and B. Dennis Sustare (independent)
‘Much Ado About Rabbits? Watership Down’s Britain’
Frances Critchley (University of Birmingham)
‘Watership Down (1978 and 2018) as Eco-Epic Animation’
Amanda Potter (Open University and University of Liverpool)
‘Watership Down’s French Journey to Fame: How Does a Children’s Book Become a Classic (or Doesn’t) through Translation?’
Virginie Douglas (University of Rouen Normandy, France)
12.00-12.45 Lunch
12:45-14:35 Panel C: Writing Animals
‘“The lingua franca of the hedgerow”: Lapine linguistics and invented languages in Watership Down’
Jim Clarke (Sapienship) and Hülya Mısır (Middle East Technical University, Turkey)
‘Exploring the Language of the Owsla’
Andrew Higgins (independent)
‘‘Humans are so Rabbit’: Watership Down and Theory of Mind’
Catherine Butler (Cardiff University)
‘“Poor creatures” like “trees in November”: Cowslip’s warren and Ishiguro’s clones
Debbie Gascoyne (independent)
‘On the Ridge Between Bull Banks and Watership Down: Eco-Ontology and the Negotiation of Space’
Lisa Sainsbury (University of Roehampton)
14.35-14.55 Tea/coffee
14.55-16.35 Panel D: Myths and Intertexts
‘“Master Rabbit I saw”: The epigraphs of Watership Down’
Kat Humphries (independent)
‘“The rabbits became strange”: Watership Down and the literature vs. folklore question’
Dimitra Fimi (University of Glasgow)
‘Prince of a Thousand Enemies: Hazel, Paul Atreides and genre interpretation of the heroic myth’
Daniel Pietersen (indepentent)
‘Two Types of Heroism?’
Frances Foster (University of Cambridge)
16.40 -17.40 Keynote 3: SF Said
(There will be time for SF Said to sign books after his talk)
Special Online Session (pre-recorded)
‘From Les Garennes to Watership Down – How Evolution in French Reception Has Translated into a New Text’
Vivien Feasson (PRISMES laboratory)
‘Edits or creative revisions? Exploring variant texts of Watership Down’
Michael Mikesell (independent)
‘The Kingdom of the Prey: Watership Down’s Enduring Influence on Diminutive Animal Fantasy for Children’
Kiel Phegley (independent)
‘A Short Survey of Tabletop Role Playing Game Adaptations of Watership Down’
Tim Hutchings (Bradley University)
Watership Down at 50 