Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night, First Printing, 1968. From the National Book Award Collection in Special Collections.

Forty years ago Norman Mailer took part in the October 21, 1967 March on the Pentagon, and penned the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning The Armies of the Night. He was originally scheduled to appear at a conference in October at Georgetown University, entitled Armies of the Night: History as a Novel; the Novel as History, in commemoration of the March. Sadly, Mailer was too ill to attend, and passed away shortly after the conference in early November.

The conference went forward with distinguished History and Literature panels during the day, and a screening of the documentary Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up? in Gaston Hall in the evening, followed by reflections from documentary filmmakers Dick Fontaine and Aviva Kempner, documentary participant and George Washington University Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Policy Studies Marcus Raskin, and Georgetown Lecturer and Georgetown Lecturer and Critic-in-Residence Maureen Corrigan.