The School of English at the University of St Andrew’s, Scotland, in conjunction with the University of Malta’s Department of English are organising a two-day international conference on the subject ‘Encountering Malta: British Writers and the Mediterranean (1760-1840)’ at the Old University Building, Valletta, on Saturday and Sunday.

Over the two days, visiting distinguished scholars will deliver 20 papers on a related theme and will mostly deal with the following eminent authors: Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Scott, Disraeli and Thackeray, among other travellers. The plenary speakers are Peter Vassallo from the University of Malta, whose paper is entitled ‘Thou damned’s quarantine: Writers and the effects of confinement in the Lazaretto’, and Michael O’Neill from the University of Durham, whose paper is entitled ‘Figuring the South: Encounters with the Mediterranean in Shelley, Ruskin and Pound.’

For further information con­­tact the conference manager Lucienne Bugeja on conferences@um.edu.mt.