Category Archives: Announcements

Donation link for EWS initiative to clean and maintain Edith Wharton’s grave

Dear Wharton friends, dear excellent colleagues:

I hope you have all had a restorative summer. 

I am writing to let you know of the Society’s initiative to clean and maintain Edith Wharton’s grave in Versailles. After Julie Olin-Ammentorp’s timely suggestion and with the invaluable help of our Treasurer Mary Carney and postmaster Donna Campbell as well as former EWS President Gary Totten and EWS archivist Carole Shaffer-Koros who provided earlier records, the Society has set up a page for donations to collect the funds for this important work. The last time we undertook this effort was in 2012; with each member’s contribution, however small, we can try to do it again. Any extra funds will be used to clean up Walter Berry’s grave as well. 

Please see below the link for donations:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=7SV8SACGLWDHN

Donate

I am truly grateful to the EWS Board and you, all our members, for helping with the Society’s work on all fronts!

With many good wishes for a happy fall and a smooth academic year,

Myrto

Myrto Drizou

Associate Professor of English 

Faculty of Education and Arts

Nord University

Bodø 8026, Norway

EWS Awards Recipients

I hope you are having an enjoyable summer. I would like to thank all those who submitted their work to the competition for the Edith Wharton Society’s Awards. We had an extremely strong set of submissions this year and we are delighted to announce the winners below:

The Elsa Nettels Prize for a Beginning Scholar 

Ilene Kalish, Independent Scholar/ New York University Press

“The Final Termination: A New Chronology of Edith Wharton’s Engagement to Harry Stevens”

The Award for Archival Research  

Laetitia Nebot-Deneuville, Dublin City University

“Early-Twentieth-Century Anglo-American literary tourism in Northern Italy and Wharton’s

Glimpses of the Moon”

The Undergraduate Research Prize 

Allegra Walker, Columbia University 

“Groping for God: Elusive Spirituality in House of Mirth and Summer.” 

Many congratulations to the winners and sincere thanks to the selection committees for their careful, precise, and thoughtful work. For the Elsa Nettels Prize, I would like to thank: Margaret Jay Jessee, Anna Girling, and Mary Carney; for the Award for Archival Research: Stacy Holden, Rita Bode, and Sheila Liming; and for the Undergraduate Research Prize: Jennifer Haytock, Arielle Zibrak, and Donna Campbell. 

With thanks to all of you who submitted your work and to all our Society’s members for their support to Edith Wharton scholarship!

Very best wishes,

Myrto

—

Myrto Drizou

President, Edith Wharton Society

Associate Professor, Nord University, Norway

Last call for EWS publications (send by June 30)

Last call for sending your Edith Wharton publications (deadline extended to June 30).

The EWS site will be holding its annual “New Books and Articles Week” featuring books and articles on Wharton this year for books and articles published in 2022 and 2023. Each book or article received will have an individual post on the EWS site until all the materials received have been posted (even if that’s longer than a week).

If you’ve published a new book or article (or an interview you’ve given, etc.) about Wharton in 2022 or 2023, please send me (whartonqueries@gmail.com or campbelld@wsu.edu) information that can be copied & pasted to the site along with an abstract or link by June 30, 2023.

    Best,

    Donna Campbell

Call for items: New Books and Articles Week at the EWS site

The EWS site will be holding its annual “New Books and Articles Week” featuring books and articles on Wharton this year for books and articles published in 2022 and 2023. Each book or article received will have an individual post on the EWS site until all the materials received have been posted (even if that’s longer than a week).

If you’ve published a new book or article (or an interview you’ve given, etc.) about Wharton in 2022 or 2023, please send me (whartonqueries@gmail.com or campbelld@wsu.edu) information that can be copied & pasted to the site along with an abstract or link by June 26, 2023.  

    Best,

    Donna Campbell

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