Mansfield conference

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 24

Mansfield conference

Victoria University in Wellington is the venue for the Katherine Mansfield Centennial Conference in October. The conference is intended to celebrate and illuminate the work of the writer who was born in 1888. It is also intended to mark the ongoing thread of New Zealand writing.

Authors such as Joy Cowley, Lauris Edmond, A. K. Grant, Patricia Grace and Louis Johnson will read from their work. A gala evening of readings by former holders of the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship will be held, along with a special presentation of new writing inspired by the centennial, including work by Bill Manhire and Witi Ihimaera. The readings will be complemented by addresses from invited speakers — including some from overseas — films and performances. The conference programme which begins on October 11, starts with a lecture by Vincent O’Sullivan, professor of English at Victoria, on "Mansfield, the New Zealand European.” From October 12 to 15, speakers and subjects will include Jacqueline Bardolph of France (“Bandol”); Donna Meyer, Australia.

("Masks and self-repre-sentation”); James Moore, England, (‘‘Mansfield and Gurdjieff”); lan Reid, Australia, (“Framing Mansfield”); Pamela Dunbar, England (“The New Zealand family stories”); Ronda Cooper, Wellington (“Mansfield and landscape”); Cherry Hankin, Christlchurch, (“Mansfield and childhood”); and Lydia Wevers, Wellington (“How Kathleen Beauchamp was kidnapped”). On October 13, a lunchtime concert of “Mansfield music” will be performed, and in the evening former Mansfield Fellows will read. On October 14, the Katherine Mansfield birthplace will be officially opened by the wife of the GovernorGeneral, Lady Reeves. Events associated with the conference include a Vice-Regal reception, announcement of the B.N.Z. New Zealand Women Writers’ Katherine Mansfield award, and the Katherine Mansfield Fellow for 1989. There will be a season of two plays about Mansfield at* Wellington’s Downstage Theatre, and the premiere of a television documentary on the writer. The conference has been organised by the English Department and the Stout Rearch Centre.