The conference will be called “ F. Scott Fitzgerald
in Long Island and New York,” and will be devoted to exploring sites connected
with The Great Gatsby, with short stories and essays dealing
with New York and Long Island, and with Fitzgerald’s residence both in New York
City and on Long Island.
In addition to scholarly presentations, the conference
will include two tours, one of Long Island, where participants will have an
opportunity to see the homes of Fitzgerald and Ring Lardner as well as sites
connected with Gatsby. The New York City tour will visit St. Patrick’s
Cathedral where the Fitzgeralds were married, the Plaza Hotel, and Columbus
Circle, so eloquently memorialized in “May Day.” In addition to the banquet on
Thursday night, the conference directors are planning a cocktail reception at a
hotel in the vicinity of Central Park South to be held on Saturday afternoon, so
that participants may attend a Broadway show in the evening.
A major feature of this conference will be the second screening of Steven Goldleaf’s new film about Fitzgerald and Long Island which will provide a background for our tour—and furnish new information about the Long Island of the 1920s. The premiere of this film will close the academic program at the Seventh International Conference in Vevey, Switzerland, this summer.
This conference will be held less than a year after our conference in Vevey. The reason for setting this date is to allow us to alternate our conferences with the Hemingway Society since so many of our members belong to both societies. We will then resume our bi-annual conferences, the next one to be held in 2007 at a location to be determined.
The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society was formed in 1990, so the 2005 conference will celebrate the fifteenth year of the Society, and it will also acknowledge the generous support that we have received from Hofstra University from the Society’s inception. We hope that once again, Charles Scribner III will attend, and we look forward to inviting a major writer as a keynote speaker.
The conference co-directors will be Ruth Prigozy (Hofstra University) and James Meredith (USAFA). The Program co-directors will be Walter Raubicheck and Steven Goldleaf (both of Pace University).
Queries about the conference should be directed to the Hofstra Cultural Center, (516) 463-5669, fax (516) 463-5793 or email HOFCULCTR@Hofstra.edu.