The Anthony Powell Society has announced that it will hold a conference in late summer at Merton College in Oxford. The subject will be Anthony Powell and the Visual Arts and the dates are Friday 31 August to Sunday 2 September. Among the speakers will be Hilary Spurling whose biography of Powell was recently published. She will speak on “Powell and the London Art Scene.” Also scheduled are talks by Prof Peter David of Campion Hall on “John Aubrey’s Drawings” and Prof Nigel Wood an editor on the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh project who wll speak on “Powell’s Modernism.” Complete details are available at this link.
The John Betjeman Society has also scheduled an Oxford event. This is a half-day program on “JB’s Oxford” scheduled for Tues, 12 June at 1430. Details available here. Here’s a description:
A guided walk led by Andrew McCallum with poetry and prose along the way, starting outside The Dragon School where JB’s association with Oxford began when he arrived as an 11 year old in 1917 and ending at The Painted Room, Cornmarket, where JB worked for The Oxford Preservation Trust in the late 1940s. There, a member of the Trust’s staff will join us to talk briefly about the work of the Trust and the Painted Rooms with its Shakespearean associations. Walk duration: about 1 hour 45 minutes, distance covered: about 2 miles.
The Graham Greene Birthplace Trust has also announced some advance details for their annual International Festival to be held this September in Berkhamstead. The final program will be announced in May. Here’s a description from their website:
We have a singer/songwriter who has produced some brilliant, thoughtful tracks on Greene – and whose name I shall release in […] May! We also have two amazing films, May We Borrow Your Husband? (1986), starring Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Attenborough, and Under the Garden (1976) [….] The programme is nearly full, but I do not wish to give too much away too soon, therefore I shall tantalise your taste-buds with the names of two speakers: Professor Mark Bosco S.J. of Georgetown University will deliver a talk, as will festival favourite, Emeritus Professor François Gallix of Paris IV-Sorbonne; the subjects that they shall address shall also follow in May […], when I shall include the line-up for the festival in full.
