Ninth International Robert Graves Conference, Oxford, 9-13 September 2008
July 9, 2008
Further information about this important forthcoming international conference, ‘Innovation and Tradition: Robert Graves in the Twentieth Century’, is now available. Please download the registration form (in PDF) here or see the brief version of the draft programme below (this is subject to change and all participants must register in advance for the conference). Alternatively visit www.robertgraves.org or contact patrick@warpoets.org
Draft Programme (at 17 August 2008):
Ninth International Robert Graves Conference
‘Innovation and Tradition:
Robert Graves in the Twentieth Century’
St John’s College, Oxford, UK
9 – 13 September 2008
Organised by the Robert Graves Society and the St John’s College Robert Graves Trust
Tuesday 9 September
1.00 – 5.30 pm: Registration (location), checking into accommodation, etc.
6.00 – 8.00 pm: Welcome to Participants (location)
John Kelly, St John’s College, Honorary Vice-President of the Robert Graves Society
Dunstan Ward, President of the Robert Graves Society
Opening Address (location): Michael Schmidt (University of Glasgow, UK, Carcanet Press):
[title to come]
Introduced by Dunstan Ward
8.00 pm: Welcoming Dinner (location)(for registered participants and invited guests)
Wednesday 10 September
9.15 – 10.15 am: Key Address (location): John Presley (Illinois State University, USA, Vice-President (Americas) of the Robert Graves Society):[‘Robert Graves’s Reputation in America’]
Introduced by [name] (affiliation)
10.15 – 10.45 am: Break
10.45 – 12 noon: Session 1: [theme] (location)
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
• Anne Mounic (Université de Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle): ‘One Story, One Theme, Two Poets: Robert Graves and David Jones’
12.00 – 1.00 pm: Special Talk (location): David Constantine (Queen’s College, Oxford, UK):
‘“A grace it had, devouring …”: Apparitions of Beauty, Love and Terror in the Poetry of Robert Graves’
Introduced by [name] (affiliation)
1.00 – 2.30 pm: Lunch (own arrangements)
2.30 – 3.45 pm: Session 2: Robert Graves Online (location)
Chair: John Presley (Illinois State University, USA, Vice-President (Americas) of the Robert Graves Society)
• Katharine Lindsay (Project Manager, First World War Poetry Digital Archive, Oxford University Computing Services, UK): [‘The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and Robert Graves’]
• Michael Basinski (Poetry Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA): [‘Robert Graves @ Buffalo: Past, Present, Future’]
• [speaker] (affiliation) [‘title’]
3.45 – 4.15 pm: Break
4.15 – 4.45 pm: Special Talk (location): Caroline Shaw (Library Archivist, St John’s College Library)[‘The Canellun Archive’]
Introduced by Michael Riordan (Archivist, St John’s College) [to be confirmed]
4.45 – 5.30 pm: Round Table: Accessing Robert Graves
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
[speakers]
5.30 – 8.00 pm: Reception to mark the arrival of the Canellun Archive at the St John’s College Library (location)
John Kelly (St John’s College, Oxford)
William Graves (Robert Graves’s Executor)
Guest speakers: Alan Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight
Exhibition of Manuscripts, Books and Documents (location)
Organised by Catherine Hilliard, Silke Schaeper and Caroline Shaw (St John’s College Library)
8.00 pm: Dinner (own arrangements)
Thursday 11 September
9.15 – 10.15 am: Key Address (location): Hugh Haughton (University of York, UK):
‘Graves and Ghosts’
Introduced by [name] (affiliation)
10.15 – 10.45 am: Break
10.45 – 12 noon: Session 3: [theme] (location)
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
•Devindra Kohli (Independent Scholar): ‘Mythologising the Hand: Graves’s Sensuous Mode’ [to be confirmed]
•Marisa Saracino and Antonio Eduardo Favale (Universita Degli Studi di Lecce, Italy): ‘Allegories of Love and Otherness in Robert Graves, C. S. Lewis and Peter Russell’
12.00 – 1.00 pm: Special Talk (location)
Fran Brearton (Queen’s University, Belfast, UK):
[‘Graves and Yeats’]
Introduced by [name] (affiliation)
1.00 – 2.30 pm: Lunch (own arrangements)
2.30 – 3.45 pm: Session 4: [theme] (location)
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
• Nancy Rosenfeld (University of Haifa and Max Stern College of Jezreel Valley, Israel): ‘“There is no ‘unless’ for poets”: Robert Graves and Postmodern Thought’
• Christopher Nicholson (affiliation): [‘Robert Graves and Psychoanalytic Thought’]
3.45 – 4.15 pm: Break
4.15 – 5.15 pm: Round Table/Interview: [theme]
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
[speakers]
5.15 – 5.30 pm: Break
5.30 – 7.30 pm: Poetry Reading (location)
David Constantine, Michael Longley, Bernard O’Donoghue, Vincent O’Sullivan
The poets will read poems by Robert Graves that have a particular appeal to them personally, and then a selection of their own work.
Introduced by Dunstan Ward (President, Robert Graves Society)
Followed by an opportunity to meet the poets.
8.00 pm: Dinner (own arrangements; a booking will be made for a pay-for-oneself group to dine with the poets at a nearby restaurant)
Friday 12 September
9.15 – 10.15 am: Key Address (Lecture Theatre): Peter McDonald (Christ Church, Oxford, UK):
‘Graves and the Shapes of Lyric’
Introduced by Fran Brearton (Queen’s University, Belfast, UK)
10.15 – 10.45 am: Break
10.45 – 12 noon: Session 5: [theme] (location)
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
• Dunstan Ward (Robert Graves Society): [title to come]
• Michael Basinski (State University of New York at Buffalo): [‘Robert Graves’s Poetry Manuscripts: In the Beginning’]
12.00 – 1.00 pm: Special Talk/Session (location): Mark Jacobs (Nottingham Trent University, UK)
[‘Laura (Riding) Jackson, Robert Graves, and A Survey of Modernist Poetry’]
Introduced by [name] (affiliation)
1.00 – 2.30 pm: Lunch (own arrangements)
2.30 – 3.45 pm: Session 6: [theme] (location)
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
• Joseph Bailey (Independent Scholar): [‘The Love Poetry of Robert Graves and Philip Larkin’]
3.45 – 4.15 pm: Break
4.15 – 5.30 pm: Session 7: [Translating Rome] (location)
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
• Colin Wells (Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, USA): [title to come] [to be confirmed]
5.45 pm: Departure to Boar’s Hill for visit and dinner (own arrangements: a booking will be made for a pay-for-oneself group to dine with the poets at a nearby restaurant.)
Saturday 13 September
9.15 – 10.15 am: Key Address (location: Patrick McGuinness (St Anne’s College, Oxford, UK):
‘Robert Graves and the Contemporary Poet’
Introduced by [name] (affiliation)
10.15 – 10.45 am: Break
10.45 – 12 noon: Session 8: Robert Graves and Music (location)
Chair: [name] (affiliation)
• Richard Carder (English Poetry and Song Society): ‘Gurney’s Journeys to Graves’
• Geoffrey Álvarez (Composer): [‘Setting Robert Graves’s Poems: My Last Muse’]
12.00 – 12.45 pm: Biennial General Meeting of the Robert Graves Society (location)
12.45 – 1.00 pm: Round-up Session and Farewell (location)
End of conference