A conference debates the work of George Orwell. “Celebrated (and often sanctified) for his antitotalitarian novels ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four,’ Orwell’s reportage in ‘Homage to Catalonia’ and ‘The Road to Wigan Pier,’ and for scores of essays on everything from communism to brewing a proper cup of tea, Orwell succeeded in his stated ambition – ‘to make political writing into an art.’ He was also a writer of dazzling range. As Thomas Cushman, the Wellesley sociology professor who organized the conference, put it, ”There was nothing that he didn’t turn his guns on.’ But at the conference, participants frequently turned their guns on each other…”