Critics have  often referred, positively or negatively, to the various forms of excess to be found in Lawrence's writings. While some mention the "exuberant merits" of his style, praising the emotional intensity of his works, others blame him for being too prolix, too pompous, too repetitive, too frank about sex, and speak with disapproval of his  "hectic descriptions" and the "Gargantuan passions" of his characters. At the beginning of his Study of Thomas Hardy, Lawrence himself elaborated a theory of excess, which is both the very illustration of excess and one of his most visionary texts. It is, he claims,  the lack of vision, the foolishness or madness of his contemporaries, that led Lawrence to moralize and philosophize so passionately and so obstinately.

Argument

Critics have  often referred, positively or negatively, to the various forms of excess to be found in Lawrence's writings. While some mention the "exuberant merits" of his style, praising the emotional intensity of his works, others blame him for being too prolix, too pompous, too repetitive, too frank about sex, and speak with disapproval of his  "hectic descriptions" and the "Gargantuan passions" of his characters. At the beginning of his Study of Thomas Hardy, Lawrence himself elaborated a theory of excess, which is both the very illustration of excess and one of his most visionary texts. It is, he claims,  the lack of vision, the foolishness or madness of his contemporaries, that led Lawrence to moralize and philosophize so passionately and so obstinately. His denunciation of the apocalyptic madess of the war, of all the evils of society, including money worship and sexual repression, brought him the dubious reputation of preacher or would-be prophet. The notions of excess, madness or vision take on various connotations in the depiction of the characters of his novels and stories. These same notions or forces also animate his poetry and are also seminal to his more directly and unguardedly personal discourse as a poet or letter-writer. Excess and madness are sometimes associatesd with frustration, anger, suffering or intense emotion, even with rapture; vision may mean either illusion or farsightedness and can be correlated with dreams and desire. In all cases, the terms suggest a breaking loose from the shackles of control or limitations, a leap into the unknown  in the quest for self-fulfillment or, at the collective level, a better state of society. In his poem "New Heaven and New Earth", Lawrence uses this striking combination of words: "I was greedy, I was mad for the unknown". 

Main themes

For the 2016 D.H. Lawrence Conference, to be held in Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense,  31 March-2 April, participants are invited to interrogate these three notions, whether separately or by way of their possible interconnection in Lawrence's works. Here are some possible lines of inquiry which can be addressed in relation to the topic:

• The Dionysian strain in Lawrence's fiction and poems, the influence of Nietzsche
• The supernatural, the superhuman as a flight from the real
• Madness and the quest for a new normality
• Insight, vision, utopia: the writer as seer
• The stylistic and narrative implications of a theory of excess, associated tropes
• Individiual and collective madness
• The polysemy and the various collocations of the words madness and vision
• Lawrence and his affinities with other visionary and antinomian critics of rationalist "normality"
• The 1960s rereading of Lawrence in relation to the categories of madness, vision, excess, normality, adaptation

Submission guidelines

The deadline for proposals is

November 15 2015.

Priority will be given to proposals received before this deadline, but the organisers will continue to examine proposals until December 1 2015. They will be examined subject to limitations due to the number of papers which can be accepted for the three-day conference.

Please send a 200 word abbstrat to:

Ginette Roy ginette.katz.roy@gmail.com or roy@u-paris10.fr

The 30th annual Nanterre D.H. Lawrence conference  will be held next spring, 31 March  -2 April on the Nanterre university campus.

Scientific commitee

• Ginette Katz-Roy, Professeure émérite, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, EA CREA 370,  ginette roy <ginette.katz.roy@gmail.com>
• Stephen ROWLEY, Professeur, Université d'Artois, ARRAS,  Textes et Cultures, EA 4028, Stephen Rowley <srroly@hotmail.com>
• Cornelius Crowley Etudes anglo-américaines UFR LCE, Professeur, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, EA 370 CREA, <cornelius.crowley@u-paris10.fr>