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VII INTERNATIONAL IMAGISM 

CONFERENCE

20-22 June 2020, Chavignol/Sury-En-Vaux, France

The XI International Aldington Society and VII International Imagism Conference will be held in Chavignol, France, near Sancerre and Sury-En-Vaux, the village where Aldington spent the last few years of his life. The International Richard Aldington Society was co-founded by Catha Aldington, and its first conference was held in her home in Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the summer of 2000. Since that time, the conference has been held biennially. The first two Imagism Conferences were held at Brunnenburg Castle in Italy in 2007 and 2010, with the Aldington Society as a joint sponsor in 2010. The two conferences were then held jointly through 2016, and in 2018 the XX conference of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society was included. The EMR Society is a co-sponsor of this year’s conference.

The RA/Imagism conference will immediately follow a conference of the May Sinclair Society to be held at the Université de Nantes, June 18-19, and the proximity of the two conferences provides an opportunity for papers interrelating Sinclair’s work with that of Aldington and the Imagists. For the Sinclair conference, see https://maysinclairsociety.com/2019/07/22/cfp-networking-may-sinclair-les-reseaux-litteraires-de-may-sinclair-universite-de-nantes-18th-19th-june-2020.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite a wide range of possible papers dealing with any aspect of the life and work of Aldington, the Imagist Movement, May Sinclair, and Elizabeth Madox Roberts.

Topics may include but are not limited to the following suggestions:

• Aldington in Sury-en-Vaux
• Aldington’s France
• Aldington and Imagism
• Aldington and H. D.
• Aldington and May Sinclair
• Modernism and Modernity
• Transatlantic Contemporaries: Richard Aldington, H. D., T. S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Dorothy Richardson, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, May Sinclair
• May Sinclair and Imagism
• May Sinclair and Elizabeth Madox Roberts

Deadline for submissions is January 5, 2020. Please send a title and 250-word abstract to the conference co-directors: Daniel Kempton (kemptond@newpaltz.edu) and H. R. Stoneback (hrs714@gmail.com).

The conference site is La Salle Panoramique in l’Hôtel Restaurant Famille Bourgeois in Chavignol.

Schedule:

Saturday June 20: Arrival day and evening reading of poetry by Richard Aldington and others at the hotel.

Sunday June 21: Academic Panels 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Monday June 22: Departure day. At 12 noon, readings from Aldington’s work at his grave in Sury-en-Vaux.

Registration and lodging information forthcoming soon. The registration fee will be a remarkably low $85, which covers all conference expenses, including morning and afternoon breaks with refreshments during the full day of academic panels, a lunch catered by the Bistro des Damnés, and at the end of the day a dégustation commentée of the wines from the Domaine Famille Bourgeois. We are awaiting confirmation of lodging details from the small hotel of the Domaine, our conference headquarters. As soon as the details are available, we will send a lodging update. The Domaine will not be able to accommodate all conferees, but there are numerous inexpensive small hotels in the Chavignol-Sancerre area in the $55-to-$110 price range. Early booking of lodging highly recommended.