CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS
31st Ezra Pound International Conference
Brunnenburg, Dorf Tirol, Merano, ITALY
6-10 July 2025
Light and Memory in Ezra Pound
Where memory liveth,
it takes its state
Formed like a diafan from light on shade
(C. 36/177)
The 31st Ezra Pound International Conference will be held Monday, 6 July–Thursday, 10 July 2025 at Brunnenburg, Dorf Tirol, Merano, Italy. Clinging to a mountainside above the Alto Adige River and just below the village of Dorf Tirol/Tirolo, Brunnenburg is a stunning castle that has been the residence of Pound’s daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, since 1948 when she and her husband, Boris de Rachewiltz, began to restore it from ruins. Nearby sits Schloss Tirol, one of the oldest extant castles in Europe, where Mary’s son, Siegfried de Rachewiltz, served as Curator and Director for many years, transforming the castle into one of Europe’s most prized edifices, a magnificent museum of Tyrolean history and culture. In addition to four days of papers and panels on Light and Memory in the work of Ezra Pound, as well as on other Poundian topics, special events tentatively planned include tours of Brunnenburg (including the Tyrolean Agricultural exhibits, the Pound Room, and African artefacts collected by Boris de Rachewiltz) and Schloss Tirol, excursions to Dorf Tirol and to Pound’s memorial three pillars at Tschengls, and musical soirées. But the crowning event will undoubtedly be the EPIC banquet, planned as a celebration of Mary de Rachewiltz’s 100th birthday! A post-conference excursion to Venice for a tour of Pound’s “forest of marble” is also a prospect.
In recognition of Mary de Rachewiltz’s remarkable achievement as both a poet and a tireless scholar and advocate of her father’s works worldwide, the theme for EPIC-31 is “Light and Memory in Ezra Pound.” Literally, figuratively, and philosophically, light (with its implicit counterparts of shade, shadow, and darkness) has a ubiquitous presence in Pound’s work. From his early dedicatory lines for Hilda Doolittle: “Let light flow about thee / As … a cloak of air” (End to Torment 69) and the light that “doth melt us into song” in “Ballateta” (Personae 36), to the poet finding in Sirmione “some clear place wherein the sun / Lets drift in on us through the olive leaves / A liquid glory” (Personae 38) and “Light as the shadow of the fish / that falls through the pale green water“ (Selected Poems 78), light and memory are intricately bound together for Pound. The Cantos, in fact, mention light more than two hundred times, whether invoking the natural world (“Thus the light rains, thus pours, e lo soleills plovil” [C4]), the power of art (“In the gloom, the gold gathers the light against it.” [C11]), human character (“Light also proceeds from the eye” [C29]), economics (“and the light became so bright and so blindin’ / in this layer of paradise / that the mind of man was bewildered” [C38]), practical wisdom (“HIEN said: no rest for an emperor. A little spark /lights a great deal of straw [C52]), ethics (“in the light of light is the virtu / ‘sunt lumina” said Erigena Scotus” [C74]), memory (“Will I ever see the Giudecca again? / or the lights against it” [C83]), ritual (“And they take lights now down to the water / the lamps float from the rowers / the sea's claw drawing them outward” [C90]), love (“Lux enim — / versus this tempest” (C110), or prophecy (“Can you enter the great acorn of light? [C. 116]). Indeed, dimensions of the phanopoeia of light and memory proliferate throughout Pound’s work in all media.
The EPIC Committee invites proposals for papers that address the theme of light and memory in Ezra Pound’s work and life, both specifically and in the broadest interpretations of these terms. As conference organizers for Brunnenburg, we further encourage papers exploring the work and life of Mary de Rachewiltz, as well as Pound’s ancestors and descendants. Proposals on all other topics pertinent to Pound are also welcome, including papers on Pound’s poetry, prose, drama, criticism, translations, music, letters, memoirs, journalism, conversations, or other texts, as well as his associations with other modernists, historical figures, or artists. Papers may involve textual interpretation, poetic language, criticism and critical reception, visual arts, economics, music, history, poetic influence, biography, politics, literary theory, transnationalism as well as globalism, teaching Pound, publishing, scholarship, digital and archival research, or other relevant areas of research. Poets are also welcome to submit a proposal to read from their own works related to Ezra Pound and/or Mary de Rachewiltz.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: November 15, 2024
If you are interested in giving a paper, please send a short proposal (250-400 words) (as Word Attachment or as email text). Please include your paper title, name(s) and affiliation(s), mailing address, and email address on the proposal.Presentations should be limited to 20 minutes delivery time (Max, 2000 words). Send proposals with the Subject Line:“EPIC-31 Proposal” by email to John Gery:
If you wish not to propose a paper but wish to receive Registration Information and Conference Details, please contact the Secretary John Gery,
Committee:
Massimo Bacigalupo, University of Genoa
Walter Baumann, University of Ulster
Diana Collecott. University of Durham
John Gery, University of New Orleans (Secretary)
Alan Golding, University of Louisville
David Moody, University of York
Akitoshi Nagahata, Nagoya University
Viorica Patea, University of Salamanca
Roxana Preda, University of Edinburgh
