Call for Papers

A Joint Conference Organised by the Arnold Bennett Society

and the H. G. Wells Society 

“Bennett & Wells: Their Friendship, Fiction & Films”

Saturday 6^th June 2009,

at The Forum Theatre, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

 The two Societies are seeking proposals for papers comparing and contrasting the lives and works of Bennett and Wells. The field is a wide one and the organisers would not wish to place any restrictions but we might suggest papers looking at:

·        their epistolary friendship

·        fictional beginnings (A Man From The North, Love and Mr Lewisham)

·        fictional marriages (Marriage, These Twain)

·        feminism (including the Women’s Suffrage Movement) and fiction

·        fictional corridors of power (The New Machiavelli, Lord Raingo)

·        Fabian relations in fact and fiction

·        representations of class

·        representations of the suburbs and knowable communities

·        critiques of aestheticism

·        a reappraisal of critical studies (from Henry James to John Carey) linking the two writers

·        film scenarios, views on cinema, and involvement in film production

·        subsequent film and TV interpretations of their texts

·        autobiographical writings

·        war as the crisis of modernity

·        marketing, commodification and modernity (Tono-Bungay, Imperial Palace)

·        the shaping of popular culture

  Please send 200 word abstracts for 20-minute papers by 31^st January 2009 to John Shapcott, ab.conference@btinternet.com. General enquiries may also be made at this address.   

 Supported by Stoke-on-Trent City Council                  

Fifth Annual Arnold Bennett Conference

“The Old Wives’ Tale:

Novel History”

A Conference organised by the Arnold Bennett Society supported by the

City of Stoke-on-Trent Council, Saturday 7^th June 2008, at the

Potteries Museum & Art Gallery  (click for details)

The Museum houses an extensive archive of Arnold Bennett material, including many of his original watercolours and a number of original manuscripts, together with a small permanent display.  The Forum Theatre is fully equipped for audio-visual presentation.

You can print out a bookingform by clicking on the link.

Whilst the Keynote Address will centre on  The Old Wives’ Tale in the context of 1908 literary culture, other presentations range from the novel's historical sources to modern television adaptations.  More details  of the Conference are available by clicking on this link.