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Edith Wharton Society Call for Papers American Literature Association (ALA) Conference 2022 May 26-29 (Chicago, IL)
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Bodies and Mobility in Wharton and Her Contemporaries
Panel One:
The Edith Wharton Society invites papers that explore how Wharton and her contemporaries represent bodies and mobility in their work. Panelists are especially encouraged to consider comparative analyses of Wharton’s work on this subject in relation to her contemporary writers. All theoretical approaches are welcome. Proposals might consider (but are not limited to) the following questions:
How does the representation and/or meaning of bodies change (or not) in different places/settings?
Who moves and who cannot, and how do bodies facilitate or hinder movement?
How do bodies mark social acceptance and belonging?
How do Wharton and her contemporaries represent gendered, classed, or raced bodies?
What constitutes acceptable or unacceptable bodies?
How do bodies coincide with upward or downward social and economic mobility?
What role does the mobility or immobility of bodies (Wharton’s, her contemporaries’ or their characters’) play in travel writing and other nonfiction works, or in depictions of travel in fiction?
Please submit a 250-300 word abstract and a brief CV by January 10, 2022 to Gary Totten (gary.totten@unlv.edu). Please include any requests for AV needs in your proposal. Scholars whose proposals are accepted must be members in good standing of the Edith Wharton Society by the time of the conference.
Panel Two:
Revisiting Edith Wharton’s Short Stories
The Edith Wharton Society invites papers that explore how Wharton engages with the form of the short story throughout her career. Panelists are encouraged to consider Wharton’s lesser-known stories as well as comparative analyses in relation to Wharton’s contemporary writers. All theoretical approaches are welcome. Proposals might consider (but are not limited to) the following questions:
How does Wharton’s short fiction converse with turn-of-the-century literary movements, including realism, naturalism, regionalism, and modernism?
How does Wharton work with specific short story genres, such as the ghost story?
How does Wharton address questions of race, ethnicity, gender, ability, and age throughout her short fiction?
How do themes and tropes in short stories complement (or conflict with) Wharton’s novels, poems, plays, and non-fiction works?
How do short stories represent issues of illness, contamination, and risk, in particular?
How do short stories shed light upon established readings of Wharton’s major novels or other writings?
How does the short story’s economy of form work within the economy of capitalism and the literary market?
Please submit a 250-300 word abstract and a brief CV by January 10, 2022 to Myrto Drizou (myrto.drizou@boun.edu.tr). Please include any requests for AV needs in your proposal. Scholars whose proposals are accepted must be members in good standing of the Edith Wharton Society by the time of the conference.
Many thanks to everyone who came to our October tea earlier this month.
I’m writing now with details of our November Transatlantic Literary Women talk – Wednesday 3 November, 5pm UK. Lindsay, Chiara and I very much hope you will be able to join us. (Please note that the UK clocks go back an hour on 31 Oct, so do double check your times if you’re joining us from outside the UK)
We’re delighted that Dr Ailsa Boyd will be joining us to discuss ‘Edith Wharton in the House of Beautiful: Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Theory’. It’s the usual format- a friendly, informal get-together with a 30 min talk, followed by questions and chat. Tea, coffee and cake positively encouraged.
Please go to the site to find details and get the Zoom link.
We hope to see some of you there. If not, perhaps at our December tea on Wed 1 December at 5pm, when we’ll be bringing back our TLW quiz for our final, festive event of 2021!
UNEARTHLY VISITANTS A New Play based on ghost stories by Edith Wharton
Adapted and Directed by Kevin Ray A fierce social critic and the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize (The Age of Innocence, 1920) Edith Wharton’s chilling short stories are the beating heart of this devised play probing the confinement of social norms and the price the living pay for ignoring the past. The performance includes the stories “Afterward”, “The Eyes”, “Miss Mary Pask” and “Bewitched”.
Performances: Friday, October 22, 7:30 PM Saturday, October 23, 2:00 PM* Saturday, October 23, 7:30 PM Sunday, October 24, 2:00 PM
Venue: Triskelion Arts 106 Calyer Street Brooklyn, NY 11222
UNEARTHLY VISITANTS is a fiscally sponsored project of Brooklyn Arts Council.
UNEARTHLY VISITANTS is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council. Funding has also been made possible by The Puffin Foundation, Ltd. UNEARTHLY VISITANTS A New Play based on ghost stories by EDITH WHARTON Directed & Adapted by KEVIN RAY October 22, 23 & 24, 2021CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS Follow me on Instagram UNEARTHLY VISITANTS Facebook Page www.kevinrayworks.com
I’m pleased that we had robust submissions this year, and I wish to extend many thanks to the Awards committees for their careful and thoughtful work: for the Elsa Nettels Prize: Myrto Drizou, Donna Campbell, and Laura Rattray; for the Award for Archival Research: Melanie Dawson, Sheila Liming, and Meg Toth; and for the Undergraduate Research Prize: Jay Jessee and Virginia Ricard.
Many congratulations to the winners! It’s a joy to see such strong scholarship on Edith Wharton and her work.
All best,
Jennifer
Dr. Jennifer Haytock Professor, English Department
THEATER REVIEW: Anne Undeland’s ‘Mr. Fullerton’ an intriguing study of Edith Wharton
There’re lots of delicious ingredients in “Mr. Fullerton,” but like a good cassoulet, it needs maturation.BY DAN DWYER POSTED ON
Edith Wharton’s got man trouble. Not just with alcoholic and philandering husband Teddy, who takes off from their winter quarters in Paris, but also with a socially and sexually wily reporter for The London Times, Morton Fullerton, whose seductive charms plunge Edith into a torrid three-year affair. That’s the premise of playwright Anne Undeland’s new play, “Mr. Fullerton,” being staged for the first time at Great Barrington Public Theater. Indeed, the younger lover (four years Edith’s junior) takes Edith places in bed she’s never been before. In a state of post-coital bliss, Edith queries, “Where did you learn to do that?” “Friends” demurs Fullerton. Friends, indeed, as back in London, Fullerton has a string of dalliances with men (and boys) that makes him subject to blackmail.
Plays about writers, including “Mr. Fullerton,” a new potboiler probing Edith Wharton’s love life, too often undermine the real brilliance of their subjects.
By Jesse GreenPublished July 28, 2021Updated July 30, 2021
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Writing is boring. I should know. I just spent a half-hour revising that first sentence.
Playwrights nevertheless like to write about writers, perhaps because of their shared tolerance for tedium. Yet beyond that, what is there really to say? Anything that fleshes out the person beneath the words tends to diminish the artistry; anything that sticks to the unfiltered words is dull.
Julie Olin-Ammentorp, “Edith Wharton’s Flowers: Poetry, Perennials, and Place.” Forthcoming in Letteratura d’America (University of Rome), Anno XLI, N. 184, 2021.
Totten, Gary. “Wharton’s Wild West: Undine Spragg and the Dakota Divorce.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, vol. 76, no. 2, 2020, pp. 1–28.
In 1917, the American novelist Edith Wharton travelled in Morocco seeking ‘barbaric splendor’ and an escape from war-torn Europe. Her French colonial hosts, keen to gain US support for their Protectorate, were happy to oblige.
The Edith Wharton Society 