Katherine Mansfield: Life, Light, and Renewal

Fontainebleau-Avon, France

13-15 October

An international conference and the annual birthday lecture

organised by the Katherine Mansfield Society

Professor Elleke Boehmer FRSL FRHistS FEA

will be presenting the Keynote Address / Birthday Lecture

From 13 to 15 October 2023, the Katherine Mansfield Society will host a conference that will take its theme from Mansfield’s claim in a 1920 letter to Ottoline Morrell that “Life is marvellous – I want to be deeply rooted in it – to live – to expand – to breathe in it – to rejoice – to share it”.  This conference, though held in Mansfield’s final resting place, will therefore focus not on illness and death, but on rebirth and renewal:  in commemorating the centennial of her passing, we celebrate her love of life and the joy and pleasure she found in the world around her.  

Paper topics may include any of the following elements of Mansfield’s work:

• Birth/rebirth
• Rejuvenation
• Childhood
• Family Life
• Love and friendship
• Pets and animals
• Nature
• Spirituality
• Life writing:  journals and letters
• The Life of Art
• Art as life-giving
• Legacy
• New approaches to Mansfield scholarship
• Contemporary adaptations of Mansfield’s work
• Teaching Mansfield: introducing KM to a new generation

Abstracts of 200 words, together with a 50-word bio-sketch, should be sent to the conference organisers at kms@katherinemansfieldsociety.org by 1 June 2023.