Upcoming Events

 

Henry James Review

 

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

 

Reading James

 

Who reads James? When? Where? How? Why? What did James want from his readers? How did he read his own writings and those of others? New work on the history, sociology, culture, psychology, even the biology of reading has made these questions fresh. This special issue of the Henry James Review invites contributions on all aspects of Jamesian reading.

 

Reading James can be, quite literally, materially different, depending upon whether the reader encounters the text in serial form, as volume from a circulating library, on loan from another reader, as part of the New York Edition, in a fine binding or a Norton anthology or on a website. And readers of James are various: writers, critics, theorists; philosophers, art historians, historians. How do disciplinary needs, methodologies, and assumptions shape such readers? Then, too, adaptation, quotation, and translation can all be viewed as forms of reading. What commercial considerations, practicalities, and formal requirements come into play? What does it mean to read James in Tehran, in Beijing, in Paris, in London? What about those times when James is (nearly) unread? Which James works have been popular? Which neglected? What gets reprinted? When? Why?

 

Readers are, of course, shaped by James. His criticism gives us theories of reading. James depicts readers in his fiction, even as he manipulates those who read him. His metaphors can be alarming--he speaks of catching readers and drugging them--and alluring: invitations to dream together. For James, “The work is divided between the writer and the reader”; both were parts he played avidly.

 

Contributions should be submitted in duplicate and produced according to MLA style. Please enclose return postage with your manuscript.  One-page proposals or short (10-12 pages) essays should be sent by March 1, 2013, to:

 

Susan M. Griffin, Editor

Henry James Review

Department of English

University of Louisville

Louisville, KY 40292

USA

E-mail: hjamesr@louisville.edu;

FAX: 502-852-4182

 

Reception Study Society panels at the American Literature Conference, San Francisco, May 24-27, 2012

 

The American Literature Association’s 21st annual conference will meet at Hyatt Regency

in Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, on May 24-27, 2012 (Thursday through Sunday).  For further information, please consult the ALA website at ww.americanliterature.org or contact the conference director, Professor Alfred Bendixen of Texas A & M University at abendixen@tamu.edu with specific questions.

 

Session 3-F Reception and Multiculturalism

Organized by the Reception Study Society

Chair: Vanessa Steinroetter, Washburn University

1. “Race, Reception, and the national Book Award: The Case of Salvage the Bones,” Molly Abel Travis, Tulane University

2. “Reporting in Faith: A Reading of The Last Report on Miracles at Little No Horse, by Louise Erdrich,” Lydia Magras, Purdue University

3. “Reception Study and the Contemporary American Short Story Cycle,” Matthew James Vechinski, University of Washington

4. “Between Communism and Black Power: Ellison and Morrison as Modernists,” Phillip Goldstein, University of Delaware-Wilmington

 

Session 11-C Literary Reception and the American Civil War

Organized by the Reception Study Society

Chair: Philip Goldstein, University of Delaware

1. “The Recovery of Readers: Newspaper Poetry and the Civil War,” Elizabeth Lorang, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

2. “Soldiers, Readers, and the Reception of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in Civil War America,” Vanessa Steinroetter, Washburn University

3. “Whitman’s Ethiopian Flag and the Anglo-Abyssinian War of 1867-8,” Nadia Nurhussein, University of Massachusetts, Boston