Lolita in America

Saturday, September 27, 2008 10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

The year 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita in the United States. Initially rejected by American editors (one recommended that “it be buried under a stone for a thousand years”), Lolita first appeared in Paris in 1955. It was 1958 before this provocative “time bomb” found an American publisher. This symposium reflects on the enormous impact of this short novel on American and world culture. A series of panels discusses Lolita in the context of world literature; in the context of American literature, and specifically of U.S. publishing in the 1950s; and in the context of cultural responses in the U.S., including the two film versions. The day concludes with a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film Lolita. Panelists include Ellen Pifer, author of Demon or Doll and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: A Casebook; Nina Khrushcheva, author of Imagining Nabokov; Fred Hills, former editor-in-chief of McGraw-Hill, Nabokov’s editor in the last decade of his life; Laura Frost, author of Sex Drives; Dominic Pettman, author of Love and Other Technologies; Leland de la Durantaye, associate professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University and author of Style is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov; Ron Rosenbaum, author of The Shakespeare Wars and acclaimed columnist for Slate; and Lila Azam Zanganeh, literary contributor to Le Monde. For the full schedule of panels and participants, visit www.newschool.edu/lolitaconference. There is also a course offered in conjunction with this event. Co-sponsored by The New School for General Studies and the Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts.

Location: Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street   Admission: Free admission. Advance registration required; email lolitaconference@newschool.edu

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