CFP: Hemingway in Paris

“The Feast in Motion: Paris 2018-Hemingway, nous voilà!“

 Conference Directors: H. R. Stoneback & Matthew Nickel

“If you are lucky enough . . . then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

George Plimpton, founding editor of The Paris Review and one of the early readers of the manuscript of A Moveable Feast remarked: “I can’t imagine sending anyone to Paris without suggesting that they read the book. It has the hard brilliance of his best fiction.” Consider that homework-to read or reread Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast as you prepare to attend the not-to-be-missed once-in-a-lifetime 18th International Hemingway Conference in Paris July 22-28, 2018. Plans for the Paris Feast are very much in motion. If we haven’t firmly convinced you yet that you really must be there in July 2018, what shall we say here? Come to the City of Light (not Lights; it’s about Enlightenment not Electricity-but the luminous lights of La Ville Lumiére are pretty spectacular, too). Come to La Capitale de la gastronomie, de l’art de vivre, de la mode, de l’amour; come to what is often called “the most beautiful and most visited city in the world”; or come because you just want to be there with Hemingway, in Paris, the place that he called “the city I love best in all the world.” Come, too, because the conference offers the opportunity to celebrate the Centenary of the End of The Great War. Come and say with Hemingway and over 4,000,000 Americans mobilized for that war: “Lafayette, we are here!” (No, General Pershing did not say it. The moving story of who first said it, when and where, is told in many books, on many websites.)  And now, some announcements and practical matters:

Speakers: We are delighted to announce that Terry Eagleton, one of the world’s leading writers, literary critics and public intellectuals, author of more than 45 books, has agreed to be a featured speaker at the conference. We are also excited to announce that Adam Gopnik, leading writer for The New Yorker for decades and author of Paris to the Moon and many other works, will be a featured speaker.We await the resolution of our invitations to other potential featured speakers-from Milan Kundera to Jean Echenoz and Patrick Modiano. We will also have an all-star lineup in special sessions featuring the authors of new and recent books on Hemingway.

Conference Papers:  As the conference Call For Papers stresses, we invite not just papers that may deal with Hemingway and Paris or Hemingway and the World War(s) but also presentations on the widest possible range of topics. The deadline for abstract submissions is Aug. 30, 2017. We look forward to receiving your abstract soon.

Special Events: We are currently in negotiations regarding special events-the Opening Reception, the PEN-Hemingway event, the Closing Banquet-to be held at some of the world’s most spectacular venues. Watch for announcements soon. We will also hold special academic plenary sessions in one of the legendary amphithéâtres of the Sorbonne.

Location and Paris Site Coordinators: The American University of Paris (AUP) is our host institution and our Paris Site Coordinators are AUP Professors Alice Mikal Craven and William Dow. AUP is located in the 7th Arrondissement, often called the safest and most serene quartier in the heart of Paris.

Lodging:  We will shortly post on the website the AUP list of lodging in the 7th Arrondissement, within walking distance of our meeting spaces and with costs as low as around 130 Euros a night. As we’ve noted before, contrary to popular myth, Paris does not have to be an expensive city when you know the terrain, and a number of 2-Star and 3-Star hotels near AUP will cost less than lodging in Oak Park (2016) and Venice (2014).

American literature is inconceivable without Paris, without the feasts of Hemingway and all the others in the Capital of Modernism. Did Gertrude Stein say it best: “Paris, France is exciting and peaceful . . . Paris was where the 20thcentury was” (Paris France). Or did Hemingway say it better: “There is never any ending to Paris . . . Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it.” (A Moveable Feast).

See you in Paris next summer, where we will raise our glasses and proclaim: Hemingway, nous voilà-Hemingway, we are here!