Article by Jeffrey Susla, Nichols College For the past six years, James Bond has had a prominent place at the annual South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference. In November 2021, it was held virtually and the sessions on Bond “Networks” were co-chaired by Oliver Buckton, Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University, and Matthew Sherman,…
By Oliver Buckton Let me begin by saying I never actually met John Pearson in person. The closest I came to a “live” meeting was a phone conversation, somewhere back in 2019, when I called him from my office at Florida Atlantic University. The phone, reaching across the Atlantic to the UK, seemed to ring…
Review by Jeffrey Susla It appears that with each generation, a new biography of Ian Fleming is published. In 1966, two years after Fleming’s death, John Pearson, a colleague of Fleming’s at The Sunday Times, wrote The Life of Ian Fleming. Pearson, to whom all Fleming fans are deeply indebted, interviewed over 150 individuals associated…
Article by Oliver Buckton One of the most puzzling questions about Ian Fleming’s career as an author is why it took him so long after the end of World War II to write the first James Bond novel. During the war, his service in the Naval Intelligence Division (NID) as assistant to DNI Admiral John…
From the first publication of Fleming’s James Bond novels in the 1950s, up to the troubled and controversial production of No Time To Die – the 25th Bond film–the persona and milieu of Bond has attracted scandal. Lambasted in 1958 by Paul Johnson for “sex, snobbery, and sadism” Fleming’s novels attracted still more notoriety when…
Diamonds really are forever! Today Lexington Books published “The Many Facets of Diamonds Are Forever.” Edited by Florida Atlantic University professor of English Oliver Buckton, and featuring ten original essays written by established scholars, bloggers, and new emerging critics, the book is the first to examine every aspect of Ian Fleming’s fourth James Bond novel…
We have two more calls for papers for the annual SAMLA conference between November 15-17, 2019 in Atlanta. Please send 250-word proposals, brief bios, and A/V requirements to Oliver Buckton (obuckton@fau.edu) and Matt Sherman (baconbond@gmail.com) by May 15th, 2019. James Bond as Popular Icon: Goldfinger at 60 (and 55) Goldfinger—the seventh James Bond novel by…
In 1952, Ian Fleming penned the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, at Goldeneye, his winter home in Jamaica. Each successive Bond novel was written at Goldeneye, and several of the most memorable and exciting novels were set in Jamaica. 2018 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Ian Fleming’s fifth James Bond novel, Dr No, (1958)…
This year’s SAMLA Conference takes place between November 3-5 at the Westin Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta, Georgia and this year, the topic is ‘From Russia with Love At 60: Serious Spy novel or popular escapism?‘. Once again Oliver Buckton chairs the event, which proves to be a classic. Friday November 3 10:00AM-11:30AM Elyn Achtymichuk, University of Saskatchewan…
2017 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Ian Fleming’s fifth James Bond novel, From Russia With Love and to celebrate there will be a 60th Anniversary Panel for the SAMLA 89 Conference in Atlanta, GA, from Nov 3-5 2017. The novel holds a special place in the Bond canon, for it was this novel that…
Submitted by: Oliver Buckton, Professor of English, Florida Atlantic University, South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Conference, Jacksonville, FL, November 4-6 2016. The 88th South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Convention—held in Jacksonville, Florida, from November 4-6, 2016– proved to be, among other things a festival of James Bond and Ian Fleming. There were two panels…
This week we caught up with Oliver Buckton, whose new book Espionage in British Fiction and Film Since 1900, explores the origins of the British spy story while keeping in focus the essential role of the “changing enemy”—the chief adversary of and threat to Britain and its allies—in the evolution of spy fiction and cinema. Using an innovative structure,…
Artistic Licence Renewed 