Centre for the Book Symposium - Books and Silence

Please Register here: 2026 Symposium Registration Form

Programme:

9.00am-10.30am - Silences in Books

• On Space and Silence: Saying More with Less
• Between the Words: What Silence Makes Possible in the Reading Encounter
• Scripting the flesh: unveiling sex-based discrimination in medical anatomy textbooks
  

Panel - Michelle Elvy, Susan McLaine, Katherine Hall

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11.00am-12.30pm - Silent Readers - Chair: Paul Tankard

• Hugh of St Victor's Didascaliscon and the Development of Silent Reading
• Books, Silence and the Transgressive Complexity of Sacred Listening
• Silencing Demons: The Censor, the Devil and Religious Didacticism in Early Modern Drama

Panel - Simone Marshall, Steve Taylor, Randy Makkinga

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1.30pm-3.00pm - Library Spaces and Voices 

• Beyond Silence: Pacific “Noise” and the Reimagining of Library Spaces
• Books and Environmental Silence: Physical Collections as Sensory Infrastructure
• From Silence to Shared Voices: Libraries, Belonging, and Representation

Panel - Miah Clark, Shiobhan Smith, Abbey Hyde, Megan Vaughan, Donna Waitere and Sela Pole-Fehoko

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3.30pm-5.00pm - Making Visible: On the Page and in the Market - Chair: Shef Rogers

• “The rest is silence”: Silence in Shakespeare and Graphic Novels
• The Resurrection Business
• UNESCO Memory of the World Presentation

Panel - Michael Cop, Karin Warnaar, Anna Blackman