The David Jones Society
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Picture
David Jones and Hilary Pepler Mounted on Pegasus (1924)


THE

DAVID JONES

SOCIETY

U.K.

Director: Dr. Anne Price-Owen
Honorary President: Dr. Rowan Williams (former archbishop of Canterbury)


     Professor David Blamires inaugurated the David Jones Society in 1975 after a successful symposium at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth on the work of the late David Jones. The Society convened another conference at Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1977, and produced a regular newsletter from 1976 until 1984, but from the mid-80s the formal meetings of the society ceased for a time. In 1996, following the success of several symposia to celebrate the centenary of Jones birth, the David Jones Society was reinstated by Dr. Anne Price-Owen and has since hosted a number of meetings and events. The Society aims to promote and encourage knowledge of the painter-poet, David Jones, and his holistic vision of the world. In his essays Jones articulated many prophetic and timely observations about the arts, religion, the condition and matter of the history of the Western world, and twentieth-century civilisation which we believe to be of particular import today.

     The David Jones Society hosts scholarly meetings on David Jones, and publishes the semi-regular David Jones Journal. It also hosts readings, performances, 'walking pilgrimages' of Jones's old haunts in and around London (including Rotherhithe, 1998 & 2012, London Churches, 1999, and Harrow, 1997, 2000, 2002), as well as visits to galleries with holdings of his works. Below is a timeline of some of its notable events:

1975 David Jones Weekend School (First symposium, convened by Roland Mathias), National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Papers published as David Jones: Eight Essays on his Work, ed. Roland Mathias (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1976).
1977 Conference at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Papers by Harman Grisewood, Kathleen Raine, Paul Hills and others.
1995 David Jones Centenary Conference, University of Warwick. Papers published as: David Jones: Artist and Poet, ed. Paul Hills (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997);
Conference, Diversity in Unity in the Art of David Jones, University of Wales, Lampeter. Papers published as: David Jones: Diversity in Unity, ed. Anne Price-Owen and Belinda Humphries (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999).
1996 Society re-instated by Anne Price-Owen in a ceremony at the Artworker's Guild, London.
1997 First meeting of re-instated Society in Swansea. 
1998 International Conference on 'Mythology' at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. 
1999 Seminar on 'Poets and Poetry,' Bangor, Wales. Society sponsored trip to Mametz Wood in Somme region, France, (where Jones was wounded in First World War). 
2000 Seminars on 'David Jones: Salutary poet-painter,' and 'The Book of Balaam’s Ass,' University of Oxford. 
2002 International Conference, Text, Texture and Intertextuality, Swansea. 
2007 Symposium, Illuminating David Jones, in Aberystwyth, to celebrate the Centenary of the National Library of Wales. The Imperial War Museum provided the venue for the DJS Poetry Reading, and also a one-day symposium: David Jones’s Military Career, complementing the major IWM exhibition, Anthem for Doomed Youth.
2008 Conference, David Jones & Cultural Identity, St James’s Palace, London, keynote by Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. RowanWilliams.
2009 Seminar on ‘Icons and Images,’ Kettle’s Yard Museum, Cambridge; North American branch of the DJS founded in Washington, D.C. by Kathleen Henderson Staudt.
2012 International Conference, David Jones: Culture and Artifice, Washington Adventist University, Washington, D.C. Papers published as David Jones: Culture and Artifice, Flashpointmag.com, Summer Issue 2016, no 18, www.flashpointmag.com/index18.htm; 
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Seminar, Borders, at Ladywell cemetery in collaboration of the Friends of Brockley & Ladywell Cemeteries.  
2014 International Conference, David Jones: Christian Modernist?, St. Anne's and Regent's Park Colleges, University of Oxford. Papers published as: David Jones: Christian Modernist?, ed. Erik Tonning, Jamie Callison, Paul Fiddes and Anna Johnson (Brill, 2018). 
2016 International Conference, David Jones: Dialogues With the Past, University of York, York, U.K.
2018 Inaugural seminar of the David Jones Research Center in Maryland, U.S.A.

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Subscriptions to The David Jones Society in the UK for 2016-17 cost £20.00 for individual members, made payable to the 'David Jones Society.' Corporate membership is £35.00. The price includes a copy of the annual David Jones Journal, as well as newsletters & invitations to DJS events. To become a member contact Anne Price-Owen at thedavidjonessociety@gmail.com 
​NORTH AMERICA
​

Covener: Kathleen Henderson Staudt (kathleen.staudt@gmail.com)
Honorary President: Prof. William Blissett


     The North American branch of the David Jones Society began with a conference on March 1 (St. David's Day), 2009, held at the Cathedral College of Washington National Cathedral and led by Kathleen Staudt and Esther de Waal. (Papers from this conference were subsequently published in Flashpoint (online magazine) No. 13 (2010) http://www.flashpointmag.com/index13.htm. Information about this branch has been posted periodically on http://davidjonesartistandpoet.blogspot.com/. 
      In March 2018, several American scholars, led by Kathleen Staudt and Bradford Haas, opened the David Jones Research Center under the auspices of the Honors College at Washington Adventist University (Takoma Park, Maryland, USA). It hosts a yearly research seminar on Jones as well as other important projects in the field of Jones Studies, notably the David Jones Digital Archive project set to begin work in 2020. For more information about the Center and its programs, see its website here: davidjonesresearch.org/
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