Robert Graves Trust, Society and Journal

Sixth International Robert Graves Conference 2004

'Robert Graves and the Experience of War'

Announcement and Call for Papers

Venue: The British Council & The British Institute in Paris, France

6-10 July, 2004

Return to the main pages | Register for the conference or propose a paper online

The Sixth International Robert Graves Conference, organized by the Robert Graves Society and the St John's College, Robert Graves Trust, will be held 6-10 July, 2004 at the British Cultural Centre, Paris, by courtesy of the British Council, France and the University of London's British Institute in Paris.

Robert Graves wrote in 1955 that: "The First World War permanently changed my outlook on life". This interdisciplinary conference will examine the significance of the experience of war on Graves's work.

Robert Graves

Topics to be discussed will include:

the experience of war in the work of Robert Graves, his contemporaries and other modern writers
Graves's classic autobiography Goodbye to All That and its status within the literature of the First World War;
the war poems, and the presence of war in Graves's poetry as a whole;
the importance of war in the central theses of The White Goddess;
the fictional representation of war in Graves's historical novels.
Graves's (and Riding's) attitude to and experience of the Spanish Civil War and World War II

*********

These and related subjects will be discussed both by Graves scholars and by historians, classicists and other specialists in the different fields from which Graves's writing draws.

Keynote speakers will be announced in due course.

Leading poets will read selections from the poetry of Robert Graves and their own work.

A feature of the conference will be a tour of First World War sites in northern France where Graves, Sassoon and others served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Accompanying persons will be welcomed and may follow their own itineraries or register to attend parts of the conference programme, social events or visits, as they wish.

PARTICIPANTS

The conference is open to all, and will be of interest to academics, teachers and research students from a wide range of disciplines, and to others concerned with the life and writings of Robert Graves.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers on aspects of the experience of war in the work of Robert Graves, his contemporaries and other modern writers.

Please send a 250-word abstract by 30 April 2004 to the conference programme organiser:

Dunstan Ward
President, Robert Graves Society
The British Institute in Paris
9-11, rue de Constantine
75340 PARIS Cedex 07
FRANCE

E-mail: d.ward@biparis.lon.ac.uk, with a copy to: conference@gravesiana.org.

LANGUAGE

The working language of the conference will be English, although some papers may be given in French or in other languages. In this case a translation or summary of the paper in English should be made available to the organisers before the conference.

Download a conference leaflet and registration form (PDF)

Download a conference leaflet and registration form (Word)

Register online or propose a paper | View a list of hotels | View a map of the conference location | Return to the main Robert Graves website

Programme Committee: Dr John Presley, Dr Ian Firla, Dr Paul O'Prey, Anne Mounic, Dr David Horner, Dunstan Ward.

Conference Organiser: Patrick Villa