November 2002 Seeking Robinson Crusoe in NUI Galway

Tim Severin, the well known author and film-maker, will give a public lecture disproving the notion that Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe was based on the life of Alexander Selkirk. The lecture entitled 'Seeking Robinson Crusoe', will take place at 7.30pm on Friday, 8 November in Room AM200, Arts Millennium Building, NUI Galway. Admission is free and all are welcome.

The lecture is part of the Royal Irish Academy's 29th National Research Symposium in Modern Language Studies which takes place on 8th and 9th of November 2002 in NUI Galway. It is the most important annual conference in modern languages in Ireland with 75 speakers from New Zealand, USA, Holland, France, Germany, UK and Ireland taking part. Other keynote speakers include Joep Leerssen, University of Amsterdam and Luigi Monga, Vanderbilt University, US. The symposium is sponsored by DEPFA BANK plc and NUI Galway.

The theme of the conference is Travel Literature and some of the topics addressed will include: Italian Correspondents and the Spanish Civil War; A Spanish perspective on Irish independence and Civil War; and Wolfe Tone's Secret Mission to France in 1796.

Two exhibitions supplementing the overall theme of the conference will be mounted and a special series of film screenings will be shown over the two days. A selection of material from the Special Collections of the James Hardiman Library will be on view in the foyer of the library, as well as a display of publications on travel in the foyer of the Arts Millennium Building.

Information from: Máire Mhic Uidhir, Press Officer, NUI Galway. Tel. 091 750418