The Tenth Biennial Meeting of the International Lawrence Durrell Society

The Paris of Durrell, Miller, and Nin (1930-1940)

Wednesday through Sunday, 20-24 May, 1998

University of Cincinnati

This conference will explore the ramifications and possibilities of defining a theory of culture and place with special regard to Paris in the 1930s. In the years between the two world wars, Paris was the capital of literary modernism, alive with creative energy, and it was here, especially, that the Anglophone world both meshed and conflicted with the Francophone.

Durrell, Miller, and Nin, coming from three vastly different cultural backgrounds, met and worked together in Paris in the 1930s. Does their writing, as Durrell contends, "bear the unmistakable signature" of Paris and its culture? Or, rather, do we find their work to be a site of cultural conflict as these three Anglophone writers confront the heart of French culture? Or is individual agency stronger than language, culture, or spirit of place? These are a few of the questions to be explored at this conference.

Although the conference will focus on Durrell, Miller, and Nin and their engagement with Paris in the 1930s, we invite papers on related topics and artists, e.g., Otto Rank's influence on Durrell, Miller, and Nin (Rank apparently was Nin's therapist); Spanish, Russian, African, and other expatriates in Paris in the 1930s; the relationship of the Harlem Renaissance to Paris and Parisian culture; the reaction of the French surrealists to the Anglophone expatriate writers.

Please send abstracts and/or papers, preferably in English, by December 1, 1997, to W. L. Godshalk, Department of English, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0069, USA..

Phones: 513-281-5927, and 556-3101 Ext. 2.
Email: godshawl@email.uc.edu.
FAX: 513-556-5960

Sponsored by the Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund, University of Cincinnati, and the International Lawrence Durrell Society.

W. L. Godshalk