\u201cDark\u201d Durrell<\/strong><\/p>\n July 4-6, 2024 \u2013 Athens, Greece<\/strong><\/p>\n On Miracle Ground XXII<\/em> International Conference Call for Papers<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The International Lawrence Durrell Society (ILDS: https:\/\/www.lawrencedurrell.org\/<\/a>) and the Hellenic American University (HAUNIV \u2013 HAEC: https:\/\/www.hauniv.edu\/<\/a>) invite proposals for papers to be presented at the forthcoming, July 2024 international conference to be held at the Hellenic American Union (HAU: https:\/\/www.hau.gr\/en-us<\/a>) in Athens. Although papers on any aspect of Durrell\u2019s writing and that of his contemporaries or milieu are welcome<\/em>, the conference organizers particularly encourage consideration of the theme of darkness.<\/p>\n \u201cYou enter Greece as one might enter a dark crystal; the form of things becomes irregular, refracted\u201d writes Lawrence Durrell in his Corfiot travel narrative Prospero\u2019s Cell<\/em> (1945, 1). He offers a quasi-identical understanding of Greece in his earlier poem \u201cLetter to Seferis the Greek\u201d: \u201cEnter the dark Crystal if you dare, And gaze on Greece\u201d (Collected Poems;<\/em> 1941, 99). While Henry Miller, in The Colossus of Maroussi<\/em>, perceives his journey to Greece as a \u201cvoyage into the light\u201d (1941, 51), Durrell suggests a journey into ambivalent, nuanced darkness. From the spectrum of Durrell\u2019s \u201cdark\u201d fictions, The Black Book<\/em>\u2019s (1938) \u201cEnglish death\u201d broodingly interweaves contrasting Corfu with the sinister interiors of a London hotel, while The Dark Labyrinth<\/em> [Cefal\u00fb<\/em>] (1961) evokes the chthonic, mythological resonances of a contemporary Cretan labyrinth. The resurgence of interest in works like Panic Spring<\/em> (1937), set in the fictional island of Mavrodaphne (Black Laurel), as well as Black Honey<\/em> (1945) and the incomplete, unpublished novel The Dark Peninsula<\/em>, foreground Durrell\u2019s use of dark imagery as a mirror of psychological or ontological conflict. They also disclose Durrell\u2019s critique of the essentialist convictions and Apollonian clich\u00e9s that often frame the Hellenic world in literature as the land of light. Durrell\u2019s obscure, sombre fictions and \u201cisland books\u201d are accompanied by poems of darkness. The duality of black symbolism resonates in poems such as \u201cDark Grecian,\u201d \u201cA Noctuary in Athens,\u201d \u201cNight Express,\u201d and \u201cCandle-Light\u201d (Collected Poems 1931-1974<\/em>). Durrell\u2019s poetic works as \u201cdark spaces of inquiry, anxiety, and desire\u201d often emulate the form and content of Durrell\u2019s 1954 \u201cLetters in Darkness\u201d to Miller (Keller-Privat, Durrell\u2019s Poetry<\/em>, 2019; 82, 153). Dark Durrell and the Dark Crystal of Greece offer a contrast to the predominantly light visions of Greece in modern Western representations.<\/p>\n Durrell\u2019s early writings remain under the spell of the late modernist zeitgeist, as well as the Villa Seurat nexus of intellectual activity and dark, neo-decadent aesthetics. The publication of Henry Miller\u2019s collection of stories entitled Black Spring <\/em>(1936) by the Parisian Obelisk Press was followed by the posterior publication of Durrell\u2019s The Black Book <\/em>by the same press. Manifestations of Durrell\u2019s association with avant-gardist networks via the lens of \u201cdarkness\u201d can also be found in posterior works like Monsieur, or The Prince of Darkness<\/em> (1974), the first volume of The Avignon Quintet<\/em>. By the same token, the tricky uses of dark motifs in Durrell trouble gender politics and problematic racial, class, or imperial dynamics. A case in point is the representation of dark (Arab) bodies in works like The Alexandria Quartet <\/em>(1962). This sketchy anthology of Durrell\u2019s enigmatic, dark imagery, as well as the ambiguity and polyvalence of the opposing forces that the colour black often stands for in literary canon, offers a critical standpoint for a full reappraisal of the author\u2019s works and late modernist or late colonialist literatures more broadly. It broaches pathways for a variety of approaches across the author\u2019s production at this exciting juncture for Durrell studies and for a broader range of authors in his milieu and of his period.<\/p>\n While the conference organizing committee would like to encourage live participation, provisions will also be made for a limited number of online presentations <\/em>to facilitate remote presenters.<\/p>\n Topics for papers might include, but are not limited to the following:<\/p>\n – Dark Imagery, Stories, and Themes <\/strong>(all genres)<\/p>\n – Dark Landscapes<\/strong> (all genres)<\/p>\n – Visual\/Pictorial Darkness<\/strong><\/p>\n – The Colour Black in Durrell<\/strong>: Symbolism\/Ambivalence<\/p>\n – Dark Greece<\/strong>: Supernatural, Ominous, Wild<\/p>\n – Light-Darkness<\/strong>, Apollonian-Dionysian Impulses<\/p>\n – Plato\u2019s Allegory of the Cave<\/strong>, Resonances of the Orphic<\/p>\n – Neo-Gothicism <\/strong>in Durrell: Ghosts, Spectres, Vampires, Death Cults<\/p>\n – Dark Modernisms<\/strong> (Durrell and D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Ana\u00efs Nin, Villa Seurat)<\/p>\n – Durrell\u2019s (and others\u2019) Formulation of Neo-Decadence<\/strong><\/p>\n – Gender Politics<\/strong> (Incest, Misogyny)<\/p>\n – Colonial Politics<\/strong> (British Intelligence, Propaganda)<\/p>\n – Racial Politics<\/strong> (Whiteness, Dark Bodies)<\/p>\n – The \u201cPrimitive\u201d<\/strong> or \u201cSavage\u201d<\/strong> in Durrell<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Please submit abstracts <\/strong>(400 words maximum) for 20-minute papers and short biographical notes<\/strong> stating affiliation (150 words) no later than\u00a0January 20, 2024, <\/strong>to darkdurrell2024@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n Confirmation of acceptance: End of January 2024<\/strong>.<\/p>\n An edited volume of essays featuring selected papers from the conference will be published with <\/strong><\/p>\n Fairleigh Dickinson University Press<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Follow The \u201cDark\u201d Durrell International Conference Twitter Account: @DarkDurrell<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The International Lawrence Durrell Society is pleased to announce that On Miracle Ground XXII will take place at Hellenic American University in Athens, Greece from 4-6 July 2024. \u201cDark\u201d Durrell July 4-6, 2024 \u2013 Athens, Greece On Miracle Ground XXII International Conference Call for Papers Keynote Marinos Pourgouris, University of Cyprus Keynote Vassilios Letsios, Ionian … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":1956,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2118,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2115\/revisions\/2118"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencedurrell.org\/wp_durrell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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