Category Archives: Announcements

EWS Board Meeting Minutes Available

The minutes from the EWS MLA Board meeting are now available under EWS Business and here: https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/membership/ews-business-2/2023-01-12-ews-mla-board-meeting/

Updated bibliography (new page) on Edith Wharton

The bibliography of books and articles on Edith Wharton has been updated, with a new page for books and articles 2020-present.

If you would like your book or article featured here but don’t see it listed, please send the information to whartonqueries@gmail.com or use the online contact form.

New Books
New Articles 2020-present

CFP Deadline Extended to 1/20/23: Edith Wharton Panels at ALA

Deadline extended to January 20, 2023.

The Edith Wharton Society will sponsor two panels at the American Literature Association 34th Annual Conference on May 25-28, 2023.

The Westin Copley Place
10 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116

Edith Wharton and Beauty

The Edith Wharton Society invites papers that explore Wharton’s engagement with beauty in her works. Panelists are encouraged to consider the role of beauty in her writing on design, gardens, and travel as well as her novels and stories. All theoretical approaches are welcome. Proposals might consider (but are not limited to) the following questions:

  • What does beauty mean or how is it constituted in Wharton’s work?
  • How do questions of shape, color, or form inflect Wharton’s perspectives on design, art, or fashion?
  • How does affect relate to beauty in Wharton’s works?
  • What is the role of natural beauty in Wharton’s texts?
  • How are Wharton’s characters affected by beauty?
  • How is beauty gendered, raced, or classed in Wharton’s work?
  • What is the relationship between beauty and cosmopolitan taste in Wharton’s texts?

Please submit a 250-300 word abstract and a brief CV by January 5, 2022 January 20, 2023. 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.

Please send to mjjessee@uab.edu 

American Literature Association

34th Annual Conference

May 25-28, 2023

The Westin Copley Place
10 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116

Edith Wharton and Weather: Culture, Climate, and Change

There’s a lot of weather in Edith Wharton’s writing: storms, snow, heat, and wind. Among other questions, proposals might consider the following:

  • How do climactic phenomena trigger, mirror, provoke human behaviors and reactions?
  • How do Wharton’s sensibilities as a traveler, gardener, and interior designer inform her approaches to weather and vice versa?  
  • How does weather figure into Wharton’s status as realist, sentimentalist, satirist, or modernist?

Please submit a 250-300 word abstract and a brief CV by January 5, 2022. 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.

Please send to mjjessee@uab.edu and mgoldsmith@ursinus.edu.

From Stacy Holden: Podcast episode about Edith Wharton in Morocco

From Stacy Holden: I spoke with Michael Cullinane of “The Gilded Age and Progressive Era” podcast about my study of Edith Wharton in Morocco.  . . .  And I really like this podcast, above and beyond the support for my work, so I’d love for more to know about it.

Here is a link: https://shows.acast.com/gildedageandprogressiveera/episodes/edith-wharton-in-morocco

EWR requests contributions on digital pedagogy

Dear all,

Edith Wharton Review is seeking contributions on digital pedagogy for its “Teaching Notes” section on teaching Edith Wharton and her contemporaries. 

We are interested in case studies that highlight the value of including digital tools (e. g. for collaboration, annotation, or analysis) in literary and cultural studies classrooms and that illustrate specific assignments, tools, and practices of digital pedagogy (broadly understood) for helping students engage with Edith Wharton’s writing. 

Essays are accepted on a rolling basis, should be approximately 3000 words long, and in accordance with MLA guidelines. 

We welcome inquiries at Katrin.horn@uni-bayreuth.de

Information on the journal is available here: https://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_EWR.html

Call for Conference Reporters/Reviewers for EWS Panels

The Edith Wharton Review seeks reviewers to cover the Edith Wharton Society panels at MLA (San Francisco, January 5-8, 2023) and ALA (Boston, May 25-28, 2023) and any other panels/papers at these conferences focused on Wharton. Reviewers are welcome to take on one or both events. 

Please send a brief introduction and statement of your interests to Rita Bode: rbode@trentu.ca as soon as possible but no later than November 30th. Please indicate which conference especially interests you.

The Edith Wharton Review aims for conference reviews of generally 2000-3000 words that should include summaries of the individual papers (topics/themes) and critical reflections on the scholarly directions emerging in Wharton studies.

EWR welcomes reviewers at all ranks, including graduate students. 

We would also appreciate if those with graduate students could alert and encourage their students to take up this opportunity. 

With thanks,

Edith Wharton Review Editors

Tour Morocco with a Wharton Scholar

My name is Stacy Holden, and I am co-organizing a private excursion tracing Edith Wharton’s trip to Morocco in 1917.   This trip is tailored to Wharton fans or scholars who want to see Morocco and learn something of Wharton’s trip there 105 years ago.  

I lived in Morocco for three years, and have been traveling back and forth for 25 years.  With Amanda Mouttaki, a travel organizer based in Marrakesh, I hope to develop experiential learning for people who love Wharton or seek a more focused travel experience.  I attached an itinerary, and you can find it online here.  

A little bit more about myself: I have been a member of the Edith Wharton Society for about 5 years.  I am an Associate Professor of History at Purdue University, and my book-in-progress will assess Wharton  as drawing room diplomat who shaped ideas about early-twentieth century US policymaking both through her writing and through her elite networks.  

Links to my professional and private website are below.  

************************* 

Stacy E. Holden, Ph.D.  

Associate Professor

Purdue University

University Hall 

672 Oval Drive 

West Lafayette, IN 47907-2087

sholden@purdue.edu

Edith Wharton Panels and Meeting at ALA 2022

American Literature Association Conference

Chicago, IL (May 26-29, 2022)

Edith Wharton Society Panels

Panel 1: Friday, May 27, 11.30-12.50

Edith Wharton, Bodies, and Mobility (Salon 7) 

Chair: Gary Totten, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

1.     “Transnationalism and Character Identity in American Novels: Wharton’s The Custom of the Country and The Reef at the Turn of the Century,” Samantha Seto, King’s College, London 

2.     “Hidden Bodies: Disability, Corporeality, and the Imperial Past in Edith Wharton’s Short Fiction,” Donna Campbell, Washington State University

Panel 2: Friday, May 27, 4.00-5.20

Wharton’s Short Stories (Indiana) 

Chair: Myrto Drizou, Boğaziçi University

1.     “‘Between myself and my readers’: Edith Wharton’s Ghost Stories and the American Unfinished,” Kacie Fodness, University of South Dakota

2.     “Edith Wharton’s ‘Blonde Beasts,’” Maria-Novella Mercuri, University College London, UK 

3.     “Not that Innocent: Teaching Edith Wharton’s ‘Roman Fever,’” M. M. Dawley, Lesley 

University

All Society’s members (and anyone interested in Wharton’s work) are cordially invited to attend our Business Meeting on Friday, May 27, 2.30-3.50 (Salon 9).

Edith Wharton Panels at ALA 2022 (updated 2022.05.17)

Session 9-F Edith Wharton, Bodies, and Mobility (Salon 7)
Organized by the Edith Wharton Society
Chair: Gary Totten, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

  1. “Transnationalism and Character Identity in American Novels: Wharton’s The Custom of the Country
    and The Reef at the Turn of the Century,” Samantha Seto, King’s College, London
  2. “Hidden Bodies: Disability, Corporeality, and the Imperial Past in Edith Wharton’s Short Fiction,” Donna
    Campbell, Washington State University

Session 10-K: Business Meeting: Edith Wharton Business Meeting (Salon 4)

Session 11-M Business Meeting: Edith Wharton Society (Salon 9)

Session 12-G Edith Wharton’s Short Stories (Indiana)
Organized by the Edith Wharton Society
Chair: Myrto Drizou, Boğaziçi University

  1. “‘Between myself and my readers’: Edith Wharton’s Ghost Stories and the American Unfinished,” Kacie
    Fodness, University of South Dakota
  2. “Edith Wharton’s ‘Blonde Beasts,’” Maria-Novella Mercuri, University College London, UK
  3. “Not that Innocent: Teaching Edith Wharton’s ‘Roman Fever,’” M. M. Dawley, Lesley University