Steven Connor is Grace 2 Professor of English in the University of Cambridge and fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He is a writer, critic and broadcaster, who has published books on Dickens, Beckett, Joyce and postmodernism, as well as on topics such as ventriloquism, skin, flies, and air. His most recent books are Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things (2011) and A Philosophy of Sport (2011). Beyond Words: Sobbing, Humming and Other Vocalizations is forthcoming from Reaktion Press and Beckett, Modernism and the Material Imagination forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2014. His website at www.stevenconnor.com includes lectures, broadcasts, unpublished work and work in progress.