Call for Conference Abstracts Hydra Greece 2016 – Συνέδριο στην Ύδρα για τους Leonard Cohen, Charmian Clift & George Johnston

Call for Conference Abstracts
Hydra, Greece 2016
Half the Perfect World:
Literary expatriation and sociability

Hydra, 1960: literary sociability Aegean style, featuring Leonard Cohen, Charmian Clift & George Johnston. (photo, James Burke).

This conference, taking its title from a Leonard Cohen song about the Aegean (Greek) island of Hydra, will explore the theme of post-war literary sociability in a spectacular location where it was famously practiced.

From 1955-1964 Hydra was home to Australian authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift, who played a central role in the island’s expatriate artist community. Its ‘members’ at various times included Australians Sidney and Cynthia Nolan, Cedric and Pat Flower, Nancy Dignan, Rodney Hall, and Mungo MacCallum, and numerous non-Australians including New Zealand novelist Redmond Wallis; Norwegian novelist Axel Jensen and his wife Marianne; Americans including ‘beat’ poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, queer novelist Gordon Merrick and his partner Charles Hulse, and photographer James Burke; Greek-American painter Demetri Gassoumis and his wife Carolyn; English journalist and author Christopher Booker, and Canadian poet and aspiring novelist and songwriter, Leonard Cohen.

This conference invites new interpretations of post-World War II literary expatriation, cultural endeavour and social exchange. While papers on the Hydra expatriates are particularly encouraged, we welcome contributions that consider other aspects of post-World War II literary and artistic expatriation, and/or that focus on the emergence of transnational creative communities and economies, both real and imagined; counter-cultures of literary or artistic endeavour; literary utopianism; ‘islanded’ creativity; and other aspects of post-war literary and cultural sociability.

Venue: Hotel Bratsera, Hydra, Greece
Dates: September 27th and 28th, 2016
Conference Convenors: Tanya Dalziell (University of Western Australia) and Paul Genoni (Curtin University).
(Please contact convenors with any queries about the suitability of topics &c.)
Abstracts: 300 words, due by October 30th, 2015, and addressed to P.genoni@curtin.edu.au and Tanya.dalziell@uwa.edu.au 
Papers: 20 or 30 minutes, with 10 minutes for discussion. But feel free to make other suggestions – we are open to panels, conversations, Q&A, personal reminiscences etc.
Website: Coming soon!
This conference is supported by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, The University of Western Australia, and Curtin University.

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