John Dos Passos Society Webpage

The John Dos Passos Society is proud to announce its 2024 biennial conference in Bassano del Grappa, Italy, at the stunning fifteenth-century Villa Cà Erizzo Luca, where Dos Passos was stationed as an American Red Cross ambulance driver in the winter of 1918.

The conference registration fee is 100 euros for full-time scholars and 50 euros for graduate students and the general public. Getting an accurate headcount is imperative, so please register by April 15 to avoid a €25 late fee!

The registration fee includes the following:
1. One-year John Dos Passos Society membership
2. Lunch at the Villa on the first day of the conference
3. Admission to the Hemingway and Great War Museum on the Villa’s grounds
4. Guided tour of nearby Monte Grappa, the site of three battles between the Italian and
Austrian armies
5. Certificate of participation

The conference gala dinner, held in the Villa’s eighteenth-century dining hall, is not
included in the conference fee but is offered at a discounted price of 70 euros.

There is no sponsoring hotel for the conference. Hotel accommodation in Bassano must
be made separately by participants. All major travel websites list the city’s many lodging
options.
Graduate students may apply for a travel grant by sending a short letter of motivation
and their full paper to the conference organizers by April 15, 2024. Grants will be
awarded to recipients after the conference.
Important dates
Abstract Submission Deadline: February 1, 2024
Notification of Acceptance: February 28, 2024
Registration Fee Deadline: April 1, 2024
Payment for Optional Gala Dinner (70 euros): April 1, 2024
Graduate Student Travel Grant Deadline: April 15, 2024

All panels will take place in the beautiful Cappella Mares within the Villa’s grounds. It was from atop the Cappella’s bell tower that Dos Passos would often make landscape sketches, write in his diary, and compose lines of poetry (which were included in the “Nights at Bassano” section of his 1922 collection A Pushcart at the Curb). The Villa is also the home of the Hemingway and Great War Museum, which offers a number of fascinating displays detailing Hemingway’s ambulance assignment in nearby Schio. Nestled in the foothills of the Italian Alps, which saw some of the harshest fighting of World War I, Bassano del Grappa is an hour train ride from Venice’s Mestre rail hub.Most major cities in the United States and Europe offer daily flights to Venice’s Marco Polo International Airport. Everything in Bassano, including the Villa Cà Erizzo Luca, is accessible by foot.