Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon 2044-4095 Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon 10.7766/orbit.v1.1.37 International Pynchon Week 2013: Call For Papers Thomas Samuel Durham University 2012 1 1 Copyright © 2012, Samuel Thomas This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/37

A call for papers for International Pynchon Week 2013, to be held at Durham University, UK from the 5-8 August 2013.

2013 marks 3 significant anniversaries for readers and scholars of Thomas Pynchon: 50 years since the publication of his first novel, V., 40 since his most acclaimed work, Gravity’s Rainbow, and 250 years since the arrival of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon on American shores (the start of the surveying project that would divide a nation and, of course, the subject of Pynchon’s metahistorical novel, Mason & Dixon). In light of this, International Pynchon Week 2013 will be held at Durham University in the UK from the 5th to the 8th of August. The location of the conference has a special resonance as Jeremiah Dixon was born and buried in County Durham.

Given the timing and setting of IPW 2013, we would particularly welcome papers that address the legacies of V. and Gravity's Rainbow and / or Pynchon’s engagement with the life of Jeremiah Dixon and the North East of England.

Other topics for consideration might include, but are no means limited to:

Pynchon's literary heritage / Pynchon’s influence and influences / Pynchon and canonicity

Novel theoretical approaches

Biographical criticism

Trans-Atlantic / Trans-Pacific / Pan-American connections

Pynchon and History

Political implications of Pynchon’s work

Pynchon and borders / boundaries / frontiers / nationhood (esp. Englishness)

Gender and sexuality in Pynchon

Pynchon’s publishing process

Archival research and Pynchon’s source materials

Pynchon’s music and songs

The shape and/or phases of Pynchon’s career and its evolving contexts

The Pynchon scholarly community itself, including online developments (e.g. P-Wiki, PYNCHON-L)

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be emailed to samuel.thomas@durham.ac.uk by 20th December 2012. Speakers will be notified by the 1st February 2013. Selected proceedings will be published in a special issue of the new, open access journal Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon.

Conference website: http://www.ipw2013.com/