DRAFT OF HIDDEN NABOKOV CONFERENCE PROGRAM
International Vladimir Nabokov Society
June 15-19, 2022, Wellesley College
Wednesday, June 15
3-6 pm Check-in at Collins Cinema (all events are scheduled there unless stated otherwise)
5-7 pm Welcome Reception
7 pm Opening Remarks and Keynote Address by Priscilla Meyer
Thursday, June 16
[Breakfast at Lulu Wang Center]
8:30-10:15 am
1. Reading Between the Lines I
“The Good Reader,” Michael Wood
“’I Saw Myself from the Outside’: Unveiling the Spectral Narrative Voice of Nabokov’s The Eye,” Emma Kristine Schwarz
*The Hyperreality of Science and Art in Nabokov’s ‘The Visit to the Museum,’” Alexander Messejnikov
“’A Bit of Haze Is Quite Indispensable Here’: Narrative Clues and Creative Compromises in Nabokov’s Letters to American Editors,” Olga Voronina
10:30 am-12:15 pm
2. Keywords
"All the Letters Hidden There: Nabokov Against the Message,” Thomas Karshan
“Nabokov, Joyce and ‘The Vane Sisters’: À la Lettre,” Jacob Szepessy
“Is Mask the Keyword in Lo? Unmasking Lolita’s Language of Confession,” Sonja Pyykkö
“’I Have Only Words to Play With!’: Riddling Lolita’s Logodaedaly,” Jeremy Stewart
[Lunch at Lulu Wang Center]
1-2:15 pm
3. Lost in Translation
*Vladimir Nabokov and ‘The Fight:’ For Form,” Timothy Naslund
"The Hidden (In)justice in Pale Fire for Its Reader/Translator,” Katharina Kokinova
“Hidden in the Archives: Nabokov as a Self-Translator into French,” Julie Loison-Charles
2:30-3:45 pm
4. Reading Between the Lines II
“Queer Nabokov,” S. A. Karpukhin
“Aubrey Beardsley’s Referential Presence in Lolita,” Sophia Houghton
*Paranoid Reading, Reparative Reading, and Queering The Real Life of Sebastian Knight,” Meghan Vicks
[Dinner at Lulu Wang Center]
7 pm
5. Nabokov at Wellesley (special evening event at Tower Court)
“The Browning Door, La Porte Nabokoff, and Nabokov’s Wellesley,” Adam Weiner
“’Looks and Books’: Institutional Charisma and Erotic Pedagogy,” Ella Barker
“’An Evening of Russian Poetry’ at Wellesley,” Wellesley students
“Preview: Nabokoviana and Artists’ Books,” Adam Weiner and Tatjana Bergelt
Friday, June 17
[Breakfast at Lulu Wang Center]
8:30-10:15 am
6. Subtexts and Intertexts I
“Nabokov's ‘The Sun Dream’ as Source and Pretext of The Tragedy of Mr. Morn,” Andrei Babikov
“Eying the Looking Glass,” Will Dane and Angela Dane
“Hidden Heine: On Nabokov’s Imitations and Impersonations of the German Poet,” Stanislav Shvabrin
“Rostand’s Chantecler, Singer of the Sun: Hidden in Plain Sight in Pale Fire,” Shoshana Milgram Knapp
10:30 am-12:15 pm
7. Subtexts and Intertexts II
“The ‘Kirghiz fairy tale’ in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism,” Alexander Panchenko
”’Implied Associations and Traditions’: The Russian Literary Unconscious in Pale Fire,” Ludmila Shleyfer Lavine
“The Ugly and Justifiable: Lolita and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Adam Riekstins
*Plot and Counter-plot: Mayne Reid’s Croquet Manual and the Narrative Shape of Pnin,” Nuri Kim Hegelmeyer and Chad Hegelmeyer
[Lunch at Lulu Wang Center]
1-2:15 pm
8. The Body’s Secrets
“’Where the Garment Gapes’: Nabokov’s Elusive Corporealities,” Lara Delage-Toriel
“Peering through the Smoke Curtain: Cigarettes in Nabokov’s Works,” Marie Bouchet
“’A Whiff of Swift’: Nabokov’s Scatological Humor,” Paul Grant
“Nabokov’s Eary Doubles: Tympanic Mechanisms and Cochlear Structures in Ada,” Sabine Metzger
3-4:30 pm
9. Hidden in the Library (special events at Clapp Library)
“Nabokov, Nabokoviana, and the Art of the Book: Tour of Special Collections,” Ruth Rogers
“Contemporary Book Arts and Nabokov,” Nabokov-inspired artists’ books by Tatjana Bergelt (in person) and Marlene MacCallum (video); hypertext fictions by Shelley Jackson (display)
[Dinner at Lulu Wang Center]
7-9 pm
10. Evening Panels: “Pnin’s Aquamarine Bowl, a Plenary of Papers and Potations”
(at the Humanities Center)
Session 1
"Agasfer: Vladimir Nabokov’s Wandering Jew," Anoushka Alexander-Rose
"Vladimir Nabokov and Italy," Irina Marchesini
"Nabokov and Autism," Morgane Allain-Roussel
"Nabokov’s Complicit Double Talk," Will Norman
"From 'Murdered' to 'Immortal': Reconstructing the Hidden in Nabokov’s Pnin," David Rampton
"Transatlantic Modernism in 'Pale Fire,’” Rachel Trousdale
"Not So Transparent Things," Frances Assa
“Visible Nature and Nabokov’s Hidden Center,” James Ramey
Session 2
“'Undistinguished Sign of Art' in Nabokov’s Memorial Prose of the Late 30s," Anastasija Drozdova
"Unfilmed Nabokov: Camera Obscura’s Spectral Adaptations," Luke Parker
"’Evening Shadow’: The Ritual of Shaving in Nabokov," Stephen Blackwell and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
"Egyptian Myths in Nabokov’s Life and Prose," Rusina Volkov
"Fanciful Creatures vs. Humans in Dr. Vladimir & Mr. Nabokov’s Fiction,” Ljuba Tarvi
"Pushkin in New Wye: Hazel Shade as Descendant of Tatyana Larin," Dana Dragunoiu
"Revealing Nabokov’s Hidden Creative Process: The Original of Laura," Ron Rosenbaum
Dessert Reception
Saturday, June 18
[Breakfast at Lulu Wang Center]
8:30-10:15 am
11. Hide and Seek
“Miniature Revelations: Hidden Children in Nabokov's Works,” Sara Pankennier Weld
“’If one were quite sincere with oneself”: The Ethics of Reading Lolita Alongside Pnin,” Jerrine Tan
"Lolita’s Cultural Afterlives,” Lyndsay Miller
“Lolita: A Story of Love or an Abuse (On the Question of Readers’ Perception),” Polina Boyarkina
10:30 am-12:15 pm
12. Hidden Agendas
"’Glory’ or ‘Slava’? Poets vs. Warriors in Nabokov's Response to History,” Tatiana Ponomareva
“The Courage Not to Conform,” Marina Minskaya
“’The Vane Sisters’ and Women’s Suffrage,” Eric Naiman
“Nabokov's Colonial Conquest: An Ecocritical Examination of Simulation, Subjectivity, and Subjugation in Lolita,” Stephanie Bontell
[Lunch at Wang Center]
1-2:15 pm
12. Religious Mysteries
“Nabokov, Religion, and Conversion,” Maxim Shrayer
“Haloed Hallucinations: St. Antony the Great and Bend Sinister’s Symbol of the Divine Power,” Erik Eklund
“Balthasar, Prince of Loam: Pale Fire’s Dark Savior—Mechanical Toy or Mystical Man?” Mary Ross
2:30-3:45 pm
13. Demonic Distortions
“Devils in the Details: Nabokov's Figurations of the Demonic,” Christopher Link
“Paramnesia and the L Disaster in Ada,” David Potter
*Nabokov’s Apophatic Poetics: The Last Novels,” Eric Weiskott
5:30 pm Conference Banquet
7 pm Keynote Address by Shelley Jackson
Sunday, June 19
[Breakfast at Wang Center]
8:30-9:45 am
14. Disclosing Nabokov’s Poetics
“Humbert Humbert as Narrator, or Metaphor as Rhetoric of Imposture,” Julie Lesnoff
“Discursive Deception: The Search for an Author in Nabokov's Lolita,” Graham Weaver
*Nabokov’s Construction of Pale Fire,” Matthew Roth
10-11:15 am
15. Deceptions and Detections
“Exploring the Past: Authorship of the Invisible,” Siggy Frank
“Modes of Detection in The Real Life of Sebastian Knight,” Paul Grimstad
“Conjuring trick”: Magic as a Theme in Pale Fire and The Luzhin Defense,” Leopold Reigner
8:30 am-12 noon Checkout
11:30 am Depart for excursion to Cambridge, 8 Craigie Circle, and Museum of Comparative Zoology
2:30 pm Return (you may also bring your luggage on the bus and travel to the airport from Cambridge)
Sponsors
International Vladimir Nabokov Society
Wellesley College
College of the Holy Cross
University of Tennessee at Knoxville