ISSN 2040-2597 (Online)

NNEWSLETTEREWSLETTER

Issue 11 April 2012

Francis Carco Exhibition, Montparnasse; photo by Donna McPherson Inside:

KMS News and Competition Results..…………………………………………………………………………….….Page 2

Report on Francis Carco Exhibition, Montparnasse by Donna McPherson………………………………………...Page 3

Conference Update: and Continental Europe, Ružomberok, Slovakia (June 2012)….…Page 5

‘The Biographer at Fontainebleau’ by Kathleen Jones………………………………………………………….……Page 6

CFP: In the Footsteps of Katherine Mansfield, Crans-Montana, Switzerland (September 2012)………………....Page 7

Garden Party Book Launch of Kezia by Kevin Boon.………………………………………………………….…….Page 8

Announcement: KMS Essay Prize…………………………………………………………………………………....Page 10

Katherine Mansfield in the US by Todd Martin……………………………………………………………………...Page 11

CFP: Katherine Mansfield Masked and Unmasked, Wellington, New Zealand (February 2013)……..……….….Page 13

Books…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...Page 14

CFP: Teaching Resources for the KMS Newsletter…………………………………………………………………..Page 17

CFP: Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End: Modernism and the First World War………………………………….Page 18

Issue 11 April 2012 Page 2 KMS News Welcome to the latest edition of the KMS Newsletter! Preparations are well underway for several KMS and KM-related events in the coming months, details of which you’ll find in- terspersed throughout this issue; we look forward to bringing you further updates and reports on all of these in future issues. For now, though, there’s plenty to report from the wider KM world. Inside, you’ll find accounts of a Parisian exhibition about the life and works of Fran- cis Carco (Page 3); reports on recent KM-panels at a number of U.S. conferences (page 11); and an exclusive from KM-biographer Kathleen Jones, the poem ‘The Biographer at Fon- tainebleau’. We also have a report on the Wellington launch of Kevin Boon’s new novella Kezia, which is based on KM’s New Zealand childhood (page 8). To read Gerri Kimber’s review of the book itself, turn to the book pages (page 14), where you’ll also find Susan Reid’s thoughts on a range of recent publications on KM, Modernism and the Postcolonial. Finally, we’re pleased to announce the KMS’s new call for KM-related Teaching Re- sources—turn to page 17 for more information!

There are a busy few months approaching for the KMS, and as ever, the KMS Newsletter will be on hand to keep you up to date. We’re always happy to consider contributions from KMS members, so please do email any submissions to the editor at: [email protected] or [email protected] We look forward to hearing from you! Jenny McDonnell Newsletter Editor COMPETITION

We had a fantastic response to last issue’s competition, where we asked you to answer the following piece of KM-trivia:

The mother of a famous New Zealand literary figure was once housekeeper for Katherine Mansfield’s paternal grandparents in Picton. Who was that literary figure?

The answer, of course, was Janet Frame; her mother Lottie Godfrey was the housekeeper in question. Well done to all who answered correctly! The winner was drawn at random from all correct entries, so congratulations go to J. Matheson-Spencer. Your prize – a copy of Kevin Boon’s Kezia – is en route!

This time around, Linda Lappin has kindly provided a copy of the new edition of Kath- erine’s Wish as a competition prize. She’s also set this issue’s competition question:

While at the Prieure, KM was befriended by an eminent Jungian who was to become a pioneer in holistic medicine. Who was that person?

Get your thinking caps on!

Please send your answers to the editor at [email protected]

The winner will be drawn at random and announced in the next issue of the KMS Newsletter.

Published by the Katherine Mansfield Society, Bath, England

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‘Francis Carco, Bohème D’Artistes’ at the Musée du Montparnasse January 6 – February 26 2012

by Donna McPherson Almost hidden along the Avenue du Maine is the Chemin du Montparnasse, an enchanting alley abounding with winter dormant plants. It is an attractive remnant of the early twentieth century that is still used for studio space. The Musée du Montparnasse is towards the back along the left in what was the Cantine des Artistes, a canteen and studio run by Marie Vassilieff and frequented by Picasso, Modigliani, Chagall, Braque and other members of the Montparnasse group of artists, the milieu of Francis Carco.

The exhibition was intimate, informal and inspiring, telling the life, art and times of Frances Carco, poet, novelist, journalist, song-writer, Goncourt academician and friend of leading artists and writers of the first half of the twentieth century. On display were manuscripts, letters, and many editions of Carco’s novels and poems, some de- lightfully illustrated by his friends. Photographs, cinema posters, and some of Carco’s art collection, along with newspaper cuttings, evoked the décor Carco took pleasure in relating. Carco described the haunts of artists, writers, thugs, thieves and grisettes of la vie Bohème of pre-WWI Montmartre and the Montparnasse.

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On the ground floor gallery of the Musée du Montparnasse artefacts of Carco’s youth and recollections of youth were on display. Ascend the wrought iron spiral stairs and the world of pre-war Montmartre was evoked in photographs and illustrations, especially of the infa- mous bar Le Lapin Agile. Head to the gallery to the left and there was the display of Kathe- rine Mansfield memorabilia. The article Mes Souvenirs sur Katherine Mansfield was on the wall, depicting Carco, Mansfield and 13 Quai aux Fleurs (Carco’s flat in which Mansfield stayed and began writing The Aloe).

Below in a glass cabinet the folder cover of Souvenirs sur Katherine Mansfield was used to hold open a signed copy of Les Innocents, a 1916 novel that contains an unsympathetic por- trayal of Mansfield as Winnie Campbell. In addition there was an annotated article titled by hand, A la Memoire de Katherine Mansfield. Within in the context of the exhibition their in- terlude and attraction could be felt. I came away with a sense of Carco and their brief pas- sionate embrace.

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KATHERINE MANSFIELD AND CONTINENTAL EUROPE An International Conference hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Letters, Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia in association with the Katherine Mansfield Society 27-29 June 2012

REGISTRATION /ACCOMMODATION DETAILS NOW AVAILABLE ON THE SPECIAL CONFER- ENCE WEBSITE: http://km-slovakia.ku.sk/

Keynote Speakers: Angela Smith, C. K. Stead, Maurizio Ascari, Gerri Kimber, Claire Davison-Pégon

Having arrived in London from New Zealand in 1908 to commence her life as a writer, Katherine Mansfield travelled widely in Europe during the 1910s and early 1920s. Rarely was this for pleasure; the notion of escap- ing from a situation, people, and later her search for a cure for tuberculosis, predetermined much of her jour- neying. The resonances of this constant travelling and immersion in foreign cultures can be perceived in both her personal writing and her creative endeavours.

Conference venue: The conference will take place on the premises of the Faculty of Arts and Letters, at the Catholic University in Ružomberok.

About the University: The Catholic University in Ružomberok is a state university established in 2000. Being so young, we don’t have much history but the advantage is that we can create that history ourselves. The Department of English Language and Literature, which will organize the conference in cooperation with the Katherine Mansfield Soci- ety, has just celebrated its 15th year, having being previously a part of the school that developed into the new university.

About Ružomberok: Ružomberok is a small industrial town in the north of Slovakia, quite close to the Polish border. Although in itself a typical industrial city with hardly any places of interest (apart from our department!), Ružomberok is surrounded by spectacular forests and mountains and its surrounding countryside is a favourite place for hiking in summer and skiing in winter. On approaching it from the south-west (where you would most probably ap- proach it from), one passes through the valley of the river Váh, which is adorned by a range of old medieval castles (most of them in ruins) that were built to create a certain chain of communication. The defenders of one could always see the castles next to theirs and communicate by fire signals in case of emergency, or shoot can- non balls at each other for fun when they were extremely bored.

Accompanying events

Trip to Poland: This will take place on Saturday, 30 June. We will do our best to spend as much of the day in Krakow as possi- ble—we will certainly visit the Wyspianski Museum and the stained glass window in the Franciscan church, the inspiration for two of KM’s poems.

Other events: We have been contacted by a group of Ukrainian film-makers who have just made a film based on KM’s ‘’, and if all goes well, the film will be screened at the conference and you’ll have the opportunity to speak to the director, producer and the main actress. The Facebook page for the film is at: http:// www.facebook.com/Cup.of.Tea.Short.Film

Further excursion: As we could never take you to Poland without first showing you a bit of Slovakia, we are planning a small trip (sort of a short-break in between the academic debate). Further details available on our website: http://km-slovakia.ku.sk/

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The Biographer at Fontainebleau

I came, by accident, to Avon the same October day she’d chosen. Eighty years between us and the limes lighting the avenue like torches.

There, at Le Prieuré, all now is gentleness, where Gurdjieff’s tribe once wrenched old lives out of their patterns

Where Katherine practised Russian verbs. Her voice, whispering from the void left by her rotting lungs.

For five years I’ve inhabited her life. Moved through the old rooms of her houses, books, her letters, always travelling towards this place.

The cemetery’s quiet, but she hated noise. And underground her bones, stripped to that final truth have found their last identity,

I place flowers, in the slanting light rehearse the last words on the page the last full stop.

Kathleen Jones

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Garden Party Book Launch of Kezia by Kevin Boon

The garden party book launch of Kevin Boon’s novella Kezia (based on Katherine Mansfield’s childhood in New Zealand), held at Kath- erine Mansfield’s Birthplace on Friday, December 2 2011, was a splendid affair with approximately fifty guests attending, re- splendent in their sunhats and summer attire. As at the original ‘Garden Party’, a variety of sandwiches and good things to eat were provided, but it is doubtful if the original affair had the same Sauvi- gnon Blanc or Pinot Noir available, demonstrating that there has been some progress in New Zealand over the past century.

Kevin was introduced by his friend, the artist and TV producer, Pe- ter Coats, who backgrounded some of Kevin’s previous writing, which has included television drama, stage plays, radio stories, sports, history, biography and fiction for young people. Of Kezia he said:

When I heard that Kevin was writing a work about Katherine Mansfield, I wondered whether he was going over what is now a well-worn path. Having read the book I’m delighted that he was able to produce something that is different. A book that, though a work of fiction, offers new insights into the childhood and formative years of Kath- erine Mansfield and the influence that they had upon her writing. Kevin’s interlacing of historic research, first-person narrative and a selection of Katherine Mansfield’s stories works well. His writing is less descriptive and detailed than Mansfield’s, but provides insight into the child’s inner thoughts, whilst developing a coherent narra- tive of events that influenced her early life. His research skills and writing experience have enabled him to create a seamless and fascinating story of the youthful experi- ence and development of New Zealand’s greatest writer. I found the book compelling reading.

Kevin began his address by quoting from the original ‘Garden Party’:

And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more per- fect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. [...] people kept com- ing in streams. [...] They were like bright birds that had alighted in the Sheridans’ garden, for this one after- noon, on their way to—where? Ah, what happiness it is to be with peo- ple who are all happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.

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After welcoming everyone and thanking those who had helped him with the production of the book, Kevin went on to explain some of the challenges and problems that it had present- ed:

It started out as what appeared to be a simple idea but become increasingly difficult and complex over the four years I worked on it.

Katherine Mansfield’s childhood and family life in New Zealand was divided into three almost equal periods. The first began with her birth at this house in 1888; but to quote again from the Garden Party, “not on the lawn, I hope!” It concluded with the move to Karori, so vividly described in the first three chapters of ‘’.

The second period was when the family lived at Chesney Wold near Karori Park, in a house which is still in existence and until recently was the home of the Mexican Am- bassador. It was during that period that Katherine and her sisters attended Karori Vil- lage School. Although I did not realise it at the time, I had the pleasure of teaching in the same classrooms where Katherine Mansfield was educated—but I sincerely hope it wasn’t quite so draughty in those days.

The third period was when the family moved to the large house at 75 Tinakori Road where the original ‘Garden Party’ took place. Unfortunately that house had to be pulled down to make way for the Wellington motorway.

One of the chief problems that I faced was that the Karori period, when Katherine was between five and ten years of age, was relatively rich in stories, while the other two periods were quite sparse. However, eventually I managed to strike a balance between Katherine Mansfield’s stories and my own account of the life of Kezia and her family. Finally I would like to emphasise that this is the story of the fictional character Kezia and her family, and not intended to be an accurate and detailed biog- raphy of Katherine Mansfield’s early life, which would be impossible to produce with the information available.

Kevin went on to read Chapter 2 of the novel, ‘White Horses and Nightmares’, which was set in the Birthplace. He thanked all those who had helped prepare the garden party and in- vited the guests to continue to enjoy the occasion.

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Katherine Mansfield in the US by Todd Martin

While US membership in the Katherine Mansfield Society remains relatively low, current US members have been working diligently to promote the study of Mansfield. Sydney Janet Kaplan, for instance, organized the first panel on KM at the Modern Language Association in over two decades. MLA met in Seattle, Washington, January 5-8, 2012. The panel, ‘Katherine Mansfield and Modernist Form’, according to Kaplan, examined Mansfield’s po- sition within modernism and investigated her contributions to it, all the while recognizing, as Rishona Zimring notes, “the irony in the fact that her writing often casts a self-conscious, critical, and even mocking gaze on the stylistic innovations of the metropolitan, modernist avant-garde.”

The MLA panel, chaired by Jay Dickson, featured Rishona Zimring’s essay, ‘Flirtation and Literary Form in Mansfield’, which argues that Mansfield challenges us to complicate defi- nitions of ‘modernist’ and ‘post-modern’. Zimring maintains that with Mansfield “modernist stylistic qualities such as innovation, authenticity, originality, and oppositionality go to battle with postmodern traits such as fluidity of identity, pastiche, and the inauthenticity and anti- essentialism figured in the enjoyment of masks”.

Nancy Gray, in her presentation, ‘Mansfield’s Uncontained Selves: Narrative Spaces for New Subjectivities’, examined “Mansfield’s techniques for locating ‘the self’—or the very concept of selfness—in narrative enactments of the tension between experience and social constructs of experience, as well as between the promise and the limitation of finding ex- pression for what can be known about those experiences”. According to Gray, “Mansfield does not define or redefine the self, but invites us to become aware of it as far from singular, always on the move, multiple, shifting, and above all indeterminate”.

In the final paper, Sydney Janet Kaplan considered the changes in Mansfield scholarship since the publication of her 1991 book, Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modernist Fiction. In ‘Mansfield’s Quarrel with Literary Impressionism’ she enlarged the panel’s focus by exploring how Mansfield’s responses to literary experimentation intersect with those of her modernist friends and contemporaries, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence. She also considered how KM’s critical positions were in an implicit dialogue with those of her part- ner, John Middleton Murry, a topic central to Kaplan's most recent book, Circulating Geni- us: John Middleton Murry, Katherine Mansfield and D. H. Lawrence (2010).

Reflecting on the panel, Kaplan regretted that it was scheduled for the last day of the confer- ence, which meant that many of the attendees had already left. Nonetheless, she indicated that the audience was enthusiastic and posed many interesting questions.

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Another panel on Mansfield was organized for the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, which took place in Louisville, Kentucky, February 23-25, 2012. This panel, which did not have a specific thematic focus, included two presentations; a third pre- senter cancelled at the last minute.

Todd Martin (left); Aiden Moffett (right) Alex Moffett presented his essay, ‘To Stare Down the Years: Irruptions of Memory in Kath- erine Mansfield’s Fiction’, which looks beyond the nostalgic glow of KM’s New Zealand stories to moments of remembrance that are sudden, unwilled, and often traumatic. He ar- gues that “the moments of spontaneous anamnesis experienced by Mansfield’s characters exist in a tension with more positive episodes of synchronic observation: the perception of the present is frequently undercut by unwanted intrusions of a threatening past”.

Focusing on , Todd Martin’s essay, ‘Katherine Mansfield in Bavaria: Unpacking the First-Peron Narrator of In a German Pension’ suggests that while the ‘implied author’ reflects the anti-German sentiments of her English readership, the first- person narrator of several of the stories – through her identification with the German pen- sioners, such as her like-minded infatuation with the German royalty in ‘The Baron’ and ‘The Sister of the Baroness’ – provides a corrective, subverting the dominant cultural per- spective of the English and demonstrating a more conflicted Mansfield.

Like the MLA panel, the panel at the Louisville conference was not as well attended as the presenters would have liked, but the small audience provided an informal feel to the session, enabling those in attendance to circle up their chairs and discuss Mansfield more casually.

So, while US membership could be bolstered, current members are active, gathering together and engaging in dialogue about Mansfield. Our hope is that through these activities, KM will garner greater exposure among literary scholars and enthusiasts in the US, prompting an in- creased interest in Mansfield that will eventually rival that in the UK and New Zealand.

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Books

Katherine Mansfield, Modernism, and the Postcolonial: Some Recent Publications

Peter Childs’s Modernist Literature: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum, 2011) does exactly what it promises, delivering a lucid, well-structured and very readable overview of modernism for the undergraduate student or general reader – and all in a compact, af- fordable paperback of only 150 pages. Particularly commendable is the balance it (mostly) achieves between writers firmly entrenched in the modernist canon (Eliot, Joyce, Woolf) and other more disput- ed figures, such as Shaw and Galsworthy, Charlotte Mew and May Sinclair, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Mina Loy and Djuna Barnes, and, of course, Katherine Mansfield. In fact the section on Mans- field’s The Garden Party is given slightly more space than Joyce’s Ulysses, in a survey that works hard not to privilege the novel form and which covers Irish and British theatre, little magazines, war po- etry and American poets, as well as the Harlem Renaissance. Childs recognises Mansfield, albeit alongside Woolf, as a pioneer of the modernist short story, focusing on ‘Prelude’, ‘Je ne parle pas français’ and ‘’ in his 1910s chapter (76–8) and on ‘The Garden Party’ in the 1920s chapter (93–4). Although the scope of the book does not allow much space for each writer, the concise and informative readings of texts are Childs’s own and there are some tantalising comments, including a fleeting comparison between ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’ and Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier (94). The ‘References’ section is also brief at less than three pages. As a guide to further reading, it therefore seems limited, but some seminal general texts are in- cluded here, with a refreshing bias towards the postcolonial. He omits his own noteworthy Modernism and the Post-Colonial (Continuum, 2007), which includes Mansfield in its chap- ter ‘Sons and Daughters of the Late Colonialism’, but includes landmark studies by Elleke Boehmer and Edward Said.

To add to these postcolonial titles is a recent spate of publica- tions on modernism and race, some of which treat Mansfield as a case study, while others seem to invite new approaches to her work. Even the cover of Urmila Seshagiri’s Race and the Mod- ernist Imagination (Cornell UP, 2010) – which depicts a Chi- nese costume by Picasso for the Ballets Russes – immediately called to mind Angela Smith’s essay in the last issue of Kathe- rine Mansfield Studies (Vol. 3, 2011). The Introduction is a compelling account of how race was at the forefront of the modernist imagination – as encapsulated by the Ballets Russes – while subsequent chapters provide engaging readings of race in Conrad, Wilde and the Fu-Manchu novels of Sax Romer; the

Issue 11 April 2012 Page 15 avant-garde in nightclubs, manifestoes, as well as in the fiction of Ford Madox Ford and Mansfield; and an extended study of Woolf. The section on ‘Katherine Mansfield, Race, and the Appearance of an Aesthetic’ is a cogent reading of her story ‘Je ne parle pas français’ as a mapping of “metropolitan modernism, returning to the café scene where we began [..] illu- minating anew the indelible link between race and modernism’s aesthetic maturation” (124– 5).

Len Platt’s collection of ten essays in Modernism and Race (Cambridge UP, 2011) is the latest contribution to what he claims is “a developed area of study which [...] has not just substantially shifted modernist studies but, rather, threatened to problematise the study of modernism out of existence” (2). Fo- cusing on the ‘transnational’ turn, essays by eminent scholars, including David Ayers, Howard J. Booth, and David Glover, challenge the “prestige culture” of the west (1) in a variety of social, cultural and political contexts, extending from canonical writers such as Ford, Kipling, Eliot and Joyce to those on the peripheries, like Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Solomon Perl and Gisella Perl. In some ways, Melissa Kennedy stages a similar complication of postcolonial readings of race in her book, discussed below, but this remains a fertile field for Mansfield scholars.

Finally, then, in Striding Both Worlds: Witi Ihimaera and New Zealand’s Literary Traditions (Rodopi, 2011), Melissa Kennedy seeks to extend enquiry into the fiction of New Zealand’s foremost Maori writer beyond the spe- cific values of Maori renaissance and biculturalism to consider aspects shared with other literatures in English. Ihimaera’s ‘rewriting of Mansfield’ provides a prominent case study. While previous critics have regarded Dear Miss Mansfield: A Tribute to Kathleen Mansfield Beau- champ as an example of what Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin defined as the ‘empire writing back’, Kennedy ex- plores Ihimaera’s declaration that he wished “to pay ‘homage’ and to say ‘thank you’” (93) and his projection of ‘intimacy with Mansfield’ (94), by drawing similari- ties between their marginalised identities. Interweaving comparisons between the stories of Ihimaera, Mansfield and Chekhov, Kennedy sensitively shows how Ihimae- ra’s “Maori response to Mansfield [...] is inclusive and generative rather than contrastive and exclusion- ist” (106). It is to be hoped that further postcolonial read- ings of Mansfield’s writing will tease out similar complexities and nuanced responses.

Susan Reid

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Kezia

Kevin Boon

(Wellington: Kotuko Publishing, 2011)

ISBN 0-908947-99-7, 138 pages

This delightful novella, aimed at the younger reader, provides a wonderful introduction to the childhood of Katherine Mansfield, via a blend of fictionalised first person narrative based on biographical information, interspersed with a selection of Mansfield’s New Zea- land stories. Explaining his rationale for producing the book, Kevin Boon writes in his introduction: “The purpose of this book is twofold: to showcase six of Katherine Mansfield’s stories, and to provide a more complete picture of the childhood of a remarkable woman at a fascinating time in New Zealand’s history” (1). The six stories on which the book is based are: ‘Prelude’, ‘The Doll’s House’, ‘At the Bay’, ‘The Little Girl’, ‘’ and ‘The Garden Party’. The first three are centred on the Burnell family, and in particular the character of the little girl Kezia, a fictionalised portrait of Mansfield herself. The latter three are also childhood stories from New Zealand but with different characters, though still loosely based on Beauchamp family memories. For the purposes of the novella, in these three stories Boon has “used the names of Kezia and other Burnell family members to provide continuity” (1).

Cleverly interweaving the above stories (reproduced in full, together with selected extracts from ‘Prelude’, ‘At the Bay’ and ‘The Garden Party’), with ‘fictionalised’ biographical in- formation written from the point of view of Kezia, the book relates the story of Mansfield’s childhood up until 1903, when she and her sisters were sent to London to continue their edu- cation. As Boon notes, “I preferred to tell my story of Kezia and her family in the first per- son, as if the fourteen-year-old girl was recalling her earlier life while on a slow and boring voyage to England” (133–4).

An adult reader might perhaps regret the lack of notes and references to source material for the volume’s fictionalised biographical sections, but bearing in mind the target readership is school children, this will not be noticed by the majority of Boon’s readers. As a retired Wel- lington headmaster, the author is well-placed to understand his audience’s needs. Any KMS member who wishes to introduce a younger reader to the childhood and works of Katherine Mansfield will find this little book an invaluable investment.

Gerri Kimber

Issue 11 April 2012 Page 17 STOP PRESS!

Call for Papers: Teaching Resources for the KMS Newsletter

The KMS would like to solicit ideas for teaching Katherine Mansfield for any academic level. We are interested in specif- ic approaches you use for teaching specific stories, special ac- tivities you may use, or perhaps just a list of key discussion questions that you have found helpful in guiding students to a better understanding of a story or stories. Really, we’d like to hear about any pedagogical ideas that you have discovered that work well for a particular academic level. Perhaps you could write up an overview of your method and include rele- vant resources or links to resources you’ve used. These ideas will be considered for publication in the Newsletter to be shared with KMS members, and we hope eventually to com- pile a number of these to post on the KMS website to encour- age and enable the teaching of Mansfield.

Please email your submissions to the editor of the KMS Newsletter at either of the following addresses:

[email protected] or [email protected]

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Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End: Modernism and the First World War

Institute of English Studies, University of London 27–29 September 2012

‘There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade’s End is one of them.’ W. H. Auden

Proposals are invited for an international conference on Ford Madox Ford’s First World War tetralogy, Pa- rade’s End. First published as Some Do Not . . . (1924), No More Parades (1925), A Man Could Stand Up– (1926) and Last Post (1928), Parade’s End has been described by Anthony Burgess as ‘the finest novel about the First World War’, by Samuel Hynes as ‘the greatest war novel ever written by an Englishman’, and by Mal- colm Bradbury as ‘a central Modernist novel of the 1920s, in which it is exemplary’. In 2010–11, Carcanet published the volumes as major critical editions, providing for the first time reliable texts, detailed annotations and discussions of the textual histories. Also in 2011, the BBC and HBO embarked on a five-part adaptation, scripted by Sir Tom Stoppard. As we approach the centenary of the start of the Great War, this conference will examine and celebrate Ford’s First World War modernist masterpiece.

Keynote Address: Adam Piette, author of Imagination at War: British Fiction and Poetry 1939-1945 (1995) and The Literary Cold War, 1945 to Vietnam (2009)

The conference aims to examine Parade’s End from a wide a range of critical, historical, and theoretical per- spectives. Possible topics might include: Parade’s End and modernism (including comparisons with other modernist novels) Parade’s End and the literature of the First World War (fiction, poetry, memoirs) Parade’s End and Ford’s other fictional and non-fictional war prose (such as No Enemy, The Marsden Case, When Blood Is Their Argument, Between St. Dennis and St. George, and the material collected in War Prose) Parade’s End and Ford’s War poetry The contexts of Parade’s End: class; women; marriage; family; bureaucracy; politics (radical toryism, communism, and the suffrage movement); music hall; cinema The techniques of Parade’s End: style; narrative; point of view; time; memory; stream of consciousness; character; humour; fairytale and romance; Literary Impressionism Influences on, and the influence of, Parade’s End

We are keen to receive proposals from graduate students as well as established scholars, and we especially wel- come papers discussing Parade’s End in relation to other writers’ works, including (but not limited to): Richard Aldington; Henri Barbusse; Vera Brittain; Edmund Blunden; H.D.; John Dos Passos; T. S. Eliot; Robert Graves; Graham Greene; Ernest Hemingway; David Jones; James Joyce; D. H. Lawrence; Wyndham Lewis; Frederic Manning; R. H. Mottram; Marcel Proust; Erich Maria Remarque; Siegfried Sassoon; May Sinclair; Rebecca West; Virginia Woolf. Speakers will be invited to submit papers for publication in International Ford Madox Ford Studies vol. 13, which will be published in 2014 to mark the centenary of the outbreak of WWI.

Please send proposals of up to 300 words for 20-minute papers to the conference organisers Rob Hawkes and Ashley Chantler ([email protected]) by 1 May 2012.

http://fordmadoxford-conference.weebly.com