The Centre for Poetic Innovation addresses poetry and poetics creatively, critically and historically, promoting and studying poetic innovation in a broad sense of both terms, from poetry as traditionally understood to poetic aspects of visual and material art forms, of prose writing as well as interactions with music, dance and digital poetry. The key aims of the Centre are:
- Hosting speakers, workshops and conferences
- Support and development of doctoral and post-doctoral research
- Public engagement and impact activities
- Joint Research Grant applications and research projects
Upcoming event
‘Pandora’s Box’
by Ghayath Almadhoun
Tuesday, 23 June, from 5:00 pm to 5:55 pm
UCO School 3
This event is part of the 16th EURAMAL CONFERENCE
HOSTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS,
DEPARTMENT OF ARABIC & PERSIAN
22‒26 June 2026, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom
CATASTROPHE AND BEYOND: REPRESENTATIONS OF VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA IN MODERN ARABIC LITERATURE
In this lecture, the acclaimed poet Ghayath Almadhoun will reflect on the role of poetry in times of war. How can language begin to express the deepest injustices and sufferings?
Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet, born in Damascus, who lives between Berlin and Stockholm. He was born in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, the son of a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother. As both Palestinian and Syrian, Almadhoun describes himself as a “double refugee.”
His work draws on memory and lived experience to write the present and to trace its impact on language and the body. In this sense, he writes our time. Composing in Arabic and reaching readers through translations into more than 30 languages, his poetry moves between the personal and the political, dissolving the distance between them. He has created several poetry films, collaborated widely with artists and scholars, and curated numerous events, readings, and literary anthologies. Critics have described his work as “urgent and necessary,” “a sustained detonation,” and as “poetry that grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck,” highlighting its uncompromising portrayal of violence and its refusal of consolation. His writing confronts the brutality and contradictions of our time, insisting on a language capable of bearing witness without looking away. He continues to divide his time between Berlin and Stockholm.
Almadhoun’s poignant poetry explores life in exile and, above all, the terrors of war. How can words make the suffering of war tangible? What does it mean to live at a distance while one’s homeland is being destroyed?
For further information about this event, please contact Dr Fabio Caiani ([email protected])