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UNE scholar’s journey down Venetian ‘labyrinths’

August 12, 2005

SuzieVenice.thumb.jpgA literary scholar from The University of New England has just returned from an international conference in Venice, where she joined other authorities on the work of the great American novelist Henry James.

The conveners chose a paper by UNE’s Dr Suzie Gibson as one of about 50 presented at the conference, titled “Tracing Henry James”, and held at the Venice International University last month.

Dr Gibson, who lectures in UNE’s School of English, Communication and Theatre, said: “The conference attracted writers, scholars and theorists of international renown. The Irish novelist Colm Toibin, whose recent novel on the private life of Henry James, The Master, has been critically acclaimed, delivered one of the keynote addresses.”

“The conference papers varied in style, form and content,” she said, “but the over-riding theme was James’s personal and fictional relationship with the city of Venice.”

Dr Gibson (pictured here during her visit to Venice) has done internationally-recognised research on the relationship between the convoluted prose style of James’s late novels and the difficult ethical dilemmas that he weaves into his plots. “It’s about the relationship between ethics and aesthetics,” she explained. Her conference paper was an extension of this research, comparing the writing style with what she described as “the labyrinthine topography and elaborate architecture of Venice”. It focused on the novel The Wings of the Dove, set in Venice, and explored the techniques through which James achieves “an over-lapping of vision between a Venice of the mind and a Venice of experience”.

Henry James’s great-grandnephews Henry and Robert James travelled from America to the conference. “The twin brothers are the great-grandsons of James’s famous brother, the pragmatist and psychologist William James,” Dr Gibson said.

Dr Gibson’s paper is to be included in a book, based on the conference presentations, to be published by Cambridge Scholars Press.


Media contact: Dr Suzie Gibson, School of English, Communication and Theatre, UNE (02) 6773 3386 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

For a photograph of Dr Suzie Gibson, go to:
http://photodatabase.une.edu.au/albums/incoming/2004/staff/Gibson%20Suzy%200001.jpg

Posted by Jim Scanlan at August 12, 2005 01:11 PM