Malta

[Otto]

Transit of Venus: 6th International Pynchon Conference
St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Valletta, Malta
June 8-11, 2004


CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

TUESDAY, JUNE 8

9:30 am  Informal Transit of Venus observation: place TBA

10:30 -- 11:00 am Keynote address by Arnold Cassola, Pynchon's Malta

11:00 -- 12:45 pm Arek Misztal, Fixed Stars and Zenith-Star Locations in
Mason &
   Dixon
   Douglas Lannark, A Chronological Examination of Love in the
   Novels of Thomas Pynchon
   Bernd Klähn, Blinded by the Light: Astronomy and Quantum
   Optics in Pynchon's Novels

Lunch Break

2:00 -- 3:45 pm Thanassis Douvris, Thomas Pynchon, "Ocular" Writer
   Evert Rutgers, Pynchon vs. Dutch History: Fictionalizing
   History and Historicizing Fiction
   Daniel Fusch, Pynchon's Historiography of Extinction

Coffee Break

4:00 -- 5:45 pm Celia Wallhead, Mason & Dixon and Hamlet
   Charles Hollander, Thomas Pynchon: American Dante?
   Katherine Streip, Pynchon and Proust: Art, Identity and Time

6:00 pm  Walking Tour of Valletta


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9

9:00 -- 10:45 am Zak Smith, Illustrating Gravity's Rainbow
   Neil Brooks, Watching the Vineland Channel: Prescient Clarion
   or Disposable Novel for a Disposable Culture
   John Lewis, Told Sorrows: Pynchon's Dead Soldiers and the
   Motives for Fiction
Coffee Break


11:00 -- 12:45 pm Luca Briasco, "Hic Sunt Leones": The Visto, the Equator
and
   Other Remarkable Lines
   Paolo Prezzavento, Writing is a Sirius Business: Astrology,
   Astronomy and the Dog Star in Mason & Dixon
   Eleonora Lacorte, Croissants and Ketchup: Cuisine in Mason &
   Dixon

Lunch Break


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9-- continued

2:00 -- 3:45 pm Giuseppe Costigliola, A Comparative Analysis of Mason &
Dixon
   and John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor
   Umberto Rossi, The Rifles: The Fire as a Symbol and Firearms
   in Mason & Dixon
   Clément Lévy, On Lines and Figures: Mason & Dixon and The
   Castle

Coffee Break

4:00 -- 5:45 pm* Damian Ward Hey, Pynchon's Signifying Duck: History and
   Fanciful Extension in Mason & Dixon
   Bruno Arich-Gerz, The Comet and the Rocket: Intertextual
   Constellations about Technological Progress in Bruno Schultz's
   "Kometa" and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
   Katrin Amian, Reconsidering Pynchon's V.: A Pragmatist-
   Semiotic Approach

*This session may have to be moved to Thursday, depending on the
availability of the cruise ship.


THURSDAY, JUNE 10

9:00 -- 9:30 am Keynote address: Peter Serracino-Inglott
9:35 --11:00 am   Luc Herman and John Krafft, Fast Learner: A Typescript of
V.
   David Cowart, V. in the Classroom

Coffee Break

11:15 -- 1:00 pm Michael Sinding, A Return to the Excluded Middle Ages
   Samuel Thomas, Blank Cheques: Invisibility and Economy in
   Mason & Dixon
   Gilles Chamerois, The Silent Discourse of the "Unreadable Map-
   scape": The Cartography of Mason & Dixon

Lunch Break

2:30 -- 3:45 pm Robert McLaughlin, History and Narrative Tension in
Pynchon's
   Novels
   Frank Palmeri, General Wolfe and the Weavers: Re-envisioning
   History in Pynchon's Mason & Dixon


4:15 pm  Harbour Cruise (The cruise and the preceding afternoon session
   may have to be switched to June 9, depending on the
   availability of the ship.)


FRIDAY, JUNE 11

9:00 -- 10:45 am Terry Reilly, Tempus Incognitus: Temporality and the Shapes
of
   Time in Mason & Dixon
   Creon Upton, Mason and Dixon's Sentimental Journey: Approaches
   to Death
   Birger Vanwesenbeeck, Projecting Worlds: Pynchon and
   Subjectivity
FRIDAY, JUNE 11 -- continued


Coffee Break

11:00 -- 12:45 pm Galena Eduardova, Four Parables of Affectivity: Or, How to
   Make Yourself a Community According to Lot 49
   Zdenik Fucik, Man Is Only Real at the Points of Decision:
   Artaud, Gravity's Rainbow, and the Architecture of the Book
   Graham Benton, Pynchon's Topographica Americana: City
   Planning, Urban Blight and the Wild West

Lunch Break

2:00 -- 3:45 pm  Noeme Klingl, Deconstructing the US as a Nation in
Gravity's
   Rainbow
   Brian Edwards, At Play with the Past: Pynchon's "America"
   Zofia Kolbuszewska, The Gospel of Thomas (Pynchon): An
   Apocryphal America in Mason & Dixon

Coffee Break

4:00 -- 4:30 pm Keynote address: Deborah Madsen

5:00  pm   Bus Tour of Pynchon's Malta