IPW brings together the world’s leading producers of market pulp, suppliers, financial analysts, logistic companies, and their customers for a first-class informational and networking opportunity.
IPW 2022
The IPW in Vancouver – “Pulp” or “Pynchon”?
Honestly, if you were a participant in this year’s IPW, you might encounter some references to pulp fiction, you might learn something on the financial aspects of products, publishing and distribution, get help with the logistics of textual interactions. You would definitely have a “first-class informational and networking opportunity” (IPW 2022)!
If you decided to join the IPW in Vancouver, BC, Canada, from 12-14 June 2022, however, you might be too late! Therefore: Watch out – rather focus on 6-10 June and instead of attending the International Pulp Week 2022, be there a week earlier for the International Pynchon Week 2022 – also in Vancouver, BC, at the West Coast of Canada! For the very first time, the IPW. i. e. “our” IPW, will be held in North America!
The official program is not out at the time of this blog post’s publication, therefore keep your eyes on revisions of or updates to this blog post! Scholars, however, have already been invited to hand in papers and topics. They are encouraged to cover “[n]ew areas in Pynchon criticism”, among those being “the study of sex, gender, sexuality, and misogyny […] and other innovative topics” (Severs 2021b).
Topics at the International Pynchon Week 2022
Jeff Severs, the organizer of this year’s IPW, suggests a wide range of topics about to be contributed by Pynchon scholars. If you have attended an IPW already, you very well know that it is not only customary to present current research on any topic relevant at the time being, but also to consider local or regional “latitudes and departures”, in other words: topics related to themes relevant to the Vancouver vicinity – sometimes symbolically or metaphorically speaking.
While waiting for the official program for the IPW 2022, let’s take a look at Severs’s suggestions! Among other themes possible or relevant, he mentions the following (cp. Severs 2021b):
- Borders: When contemplating the location of Vancouver, BC, borders come to mind almost immediately. Severs therefore suggests topics on the relation between political borders and natural landscapes. Mason & Dixon, Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge could be taken as departures and textual references that might be relevant here. If you consider “borders” in a symbolic or metaphorical sense, other topics might be contributed, e. g. with reference to Pynchon’s oeuvre itself: Are there any dividing lines in his literary career, e. g. when we think of style, themes etc.?
- Space, Place, Cities, and Ecology: Scholars are invited to contribute ideas on “space, place, and ecology in all the many dimensions (plenty of them connected to the supernatural)” (Severs 2021b). The setting of the IPW in Vancouver can also be seen as a point of departure – considering its rainforest, environmental values and events, e. g. the founding of Greenpeace in Vancouver in 1971.
- Race, Ethnicity, and Colonial Critiques: Us readers know, Pynchon is very much concerned with issues of race, racial ideologies, genocide. Whereas there is a body of work on such issues already for V. and Gravity’s Rainbow, what about other ethnicities, say Asian and Native Americans and their cultures and cultural practices interwoven into Pynchon’s texts – among the latter probably most prominently Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day?!
- Simulated Worlds, Cinematic and Digital: Why not include papers and talks on film and the digital world – in the city of Vancouver which is also often called “Hollywood North” (cp. Severs 2021b)! Textual references could include almost any Pynchon novel, predominantly perhaps Gravity’s Rainbow, Inherent Vice and – when it comes to the Internet – departures into “DeepArcher”, the darker locations of the Internet. Anything on Anderson’s film Inherent Vice or Jim Gavin’s series Lodge 49? Go for it!
- Pynchon’s Paranoia in a New Era: “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (Hofstadter 1964) of the Sixties, in politics and leftist culture alike, that also influenced the text of Gravity’s Rainbow has its sons, grandsons, daughters, and granddaughters these days and historic research departs a little bit from Hofstadter (cp. Butter 2020), but, nevertheless or for that very reason: Why not dive into Pynchon’s renderings, hints, and themes of political radicalism left and right, the Alt-Right, the religious right, and of paranoia narratives – on a conference in the very country of Canada which in addition to “Pynchon’s Mexico” in the 1960s is a refuge for those who flee from political and cultural radicalism or neo-liberalism.
- Pynchon and Public Life: “Public” in its many meanings – the publishing industry, unpublished works, Pynchon readers in the (digital) public sphere in contrast to the author’s private life etc. Scholars are also invited to publish, communicate and discuss their ideas on this theme.
- N. N.: Non nominatum – but probably very interesting in addition to Severs’s suggestions and calls for papers mentioned and summarized above. What are you currently most interested in? What would you like to hear and discuss on the International Pynchon Week 2022 in Vancouver, BC, Canada? Go ahead and share your wish list in the comments’ section below this blog post!
Zooming in on “Pynchon”?!
At the time being it seems as if the library of genetic variations has not been explored in total by that virus that changed our everyday-lives as much as conference culture.
What will life be like in June 2022? Who knows for sure, but it might be possible for the IPW to really take place this year as an in-person event! If you are – for one reason or another – not able to travel to Vancouver, there might still be the possibility to attend from the distance via live streaming. Some of the presentations are being planned as online talks and (chat) discussions so that more of us, especially those from all different walks of work life, would be able to participate (cp. Severs 2021c).
The IPW Chronology
With the help of Sascha Pöhlmann, Jeff Severs, Luc Herman, Paolo Simonetti, Michael Ryckx, Umberto Rossi, Richard Moss, Tim Ware, Heikki Raudaskoski (all on W.A.S.T.E. – a facebook Pynchon group) – I was able to compile a list of conferences on Pynchon. Not all of them were called “International Pynchon Week” and there were definitely more Pynchon conventions than those I have listed so far.
If you can think of anything to add to the list (other IPWs (in 2000?)), conference title, names of organizers, and possibly publications of contributions), please do let me know – simply by commenting on this blog entry at the end of the blog post or by shooting me an email, e. g. via the Contact Form.
International Pynchon Weeks
| Year | Location | Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 1994 | Warwick, England (November): Schizophrenia and Social Control |
| 1998 | Antwerp, Belgium: Gravity’s Rainbow: The First 25 Years – organized by Luc Herman – proceedings to the conference in Pynchon Notes, nos. 42-43 London, England: Beyond the Rainbow’s End – organized by Eric Weinstein – articles in Abbas 2003 |
| 2002 | Cologne, Germany (14-16 June): site-specific: from aachen to zwölfkinder – pynchon | germany – organized by Hanjo Berressem – articles in a special edition of Pynchon Notes |
| 2004 | Valletta, Malta – organized by Vaska Tumir |
| 2006 | Granada, Spain – organized by Celia Wallhead – proceedings to the conference in Pynchon Notes |
| 2008 | Munich, Germany: Against the Grain: Reading Pynchon’s Counternarratives – organized by Sascha Pöhlmann – proceedings published in Pöhlmann 2010 – newspaper report by Die Welt (German newspaper) – report by Bruno Arich-Gerz (on electronic book review) |
| 2010 | Lublin, Poland – organized by Zofia Kolbuszewska – proceedings published in Kolbuszewska 2012 |
| 2013 | Durham, England – organized by Sam Thomas with the help of Martin Paul Eve – report by Martin Paul Eve on the conference: Eve 2013 |
| 2015 | Athens, Greece – organized by Georgios Maragos |
| 2017 | La Rochelle, France – organized by Bénédicte Chorier-Fryd and Gilles Chamerois – official website |
| 2019 | Rome, Italy (11-14 June): Pynchon in Rome – organized by Umberto Rossi, Paolo Simonetti, and Giorgio Mariani – official website |
| 2021 | Vancouver, Canada – did not take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic |
| 2022 | Vancouver, Canada (6-10 June) – organized by Jeff Severs – official website |
| 2024 | Belgrade, Serbia (17-21 June) – organized by Aleksandra Vukotić and Sergej Macura – official website |
Will you attend, speak, participate?
Are you planning to be there – in person or online? Which topic are you most interested in? Let us know in the comments’ section below!
More on the IPW 2022 soon! Register for my Reading Pynchon | Newsletter on almost any page of my blog here if you aren’t on that list already! It still keeps growing and I am more than happy to keep you informed on almost anything concerning Thomas Pynchon, his works and their contexts!
More on International Pynchon Weeks
See the following blog articles on the IPW 2019 in Rome:
- Preview to the IPW 2019 in Rome: Which topics were covered in 2019? See my blog article on the pre-pandemic International Pynchon Week 2019!
- Interview with the organizers: Get to know the 2019 organizers of the IPW in Rome: Umberto Rossi and Paolo Simonetti answer questions on their Pynchon experience and the 2019 conference.
Further Reading
- Abbas, Niran B. (2003; ed.). Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the Margins, Madison, N. J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
- Berressem, H., (2008) “Site-Specific: Pynchon | Germany – A Multiplicity of Critical Eigenvalues”, Pynchon Notes , 11-25. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.22 (Accessed on 28 June, 2023).
- Chamerois, Gilles (ed.). Reading Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel Against the Day, GRAAT On-Line, No. 3 (2008), URL: http://www.graat.fr/backissuespynchon.htm?fbclid=IwAR3IOMW75-4vIHH2Lh5jr9QkbNpBxjulHhJGeBJ-_Bxsed3vYhJ2EJVY_iw (Accessed on 9 May, 2019).
- Butter, Michael (2020). The Nature of Conspiracy Theories, Cambridge et al.: Polity.
- Eve, Martin Paul (2013). “On International Pynchon Week”, URL: https://eve.gd/2013/08/11/on-international-pynchon-week/ and here: https://readdurhamenglish.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/on-international-pynchon-week-2013/ (Accessed on 28 June, 2023).
- Hofstadter, Richard (1964). “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, Harper’s Magazine, November, URL: https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/ (Last access: 2 February, 2022).
- Kolbuszewska, Zofia (2012). Thomas Pynchon and the (De)vices of Global (Post)modernity. Wydawnictwo KUL.
- Pöhlmann, Sascha (ed.; 2010). Against the Grain: Reading Pynchon’s Counternarratives. Rodopi, 2010.
- Severs, Jeff (2021a). International Pynchon Week 2022, URL: https://www.internationalpynchonweek.org (Last access: 2 February, 2022).
- Severs, Jeff (2021b). “The call for papers”, on: International Pynchon Week 2022, URL: https://www.internationalpynchonweek.org/call-for-papers (Last access: 2 February, 2022).
- Severs, Jeff (2021c). “10/31/21 addendum on a hybrid conference and online paper delivery options”, on: International Pynchon Week 2022, URL: https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/ (Last access: 2 February, 2022).
- Wallhead, C. & Collado-Rodríguez, F., (2011) “Introduction (Granada Pynchon Conference Volume)”, Pynchon Notes , 9-20. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.1 (Accessed on 28 June, 2023).
- Wulff, Matthias (2008). “Freaks erforschen ein Mysterium”, Die Welt, 15.06.2008, URL: https://www.welt.de/wams_print/article2105462/Freaks-erforschen-ein-Mysterium.html (Accessed on 28 June, 2008).
Credits
- Featured image: Skyline of Vancouver, BC, Canada © Rosalie Magistro (on Canva); Utz Klöppelt – Reading Pynchon.
- Vancouver island rainforest on a rainy day © Emily Norton (on Canva), Utz Klöppelt – Reading Pynchon.
- Colosseum in Rome, Italy © Utz Klöppelt – Reading Pynchon.
- Official poster for the International Pynchon Week in Rome, June 2019 © Enrico Benella, based on an idea by Paolo Simonetti, 2019, and Marc Getter’s cover design for the first US edition of Gravity’s Rainbow, April 1973.
The conference sounds great!
Can you tell me what the fee is to attend in person?
Hi Lisa,
sorry, I have no idea. It might be advisable to contact the organizers (see link to official website above). At the time being there is only information on accomodations in Vancouver on the official IPW 2022 website.
Hope you can attend!
Best wishes from Germany,
Utz