Edith Wharton Society Business Meeting
ALA
June 1, 2002
The meeting was called to order at 10:15 by Julie Olin-Ammentorp, Vice President of the Society, acting for EWS president Augusta Rohrbach.
The first order of business was discussion of the Roehampton conference in July 2003. Julie passed out copies of the Call for Papers and gave an update on conference preparations. We are on the verge of contacting our featured speakers.
Carole Shaffer-Koros spoke next about the status of the Edith Wharton Review. She invited submissions from the excellent papers that had been presented at this conference and from all those working on Wharton. The rejection rate for the EWR has recently been running at about 80%. Carole also acknowledged those people who have been reviewing manuscripts but are not on the Editorial Board; their assistance in reviewing has been much appreciated.
Julie then called the members’ attention to a change in the elections policy. This policy was voted into effect at ALA 2001, and it states the following:
- Nominations will be made from the floor as well as from the Executive Board.
- Elections will be held by mail-in ballot instead of a vote by the members present at ALA or MLA.
Nominations were then made for the office of Secretary and the position of at-large member of the Executive Board. The nominations were as follows:
Secretary: Hildegard Hoeller.
At-large members: Frederick Wegener, Laura Saltz
Linda Cahir will prepare ballots with a write-in line so that other candidates may receive write-in votes in accordance with MLA regulations for affiliate organizations. The ballots will be mailed out with the Spring issue of the Edith Wharton Review.
Hildegard Hoeller suggested that perhaps the Edith Wharton Society could schedule a joint meeting or reception with another author society, such as the William Dean Howells Society. This would have the advantage of bringing together like-minded scholars and would also serve to increase attendance at business meetings. After some discussion, we decided to work toward a joint reception with the Howells Society next year, with perhaps a business meeting for one organization held before the reception and a business meeting for the other held after it.
The next order of business was the selection of topics for next year’s ALA panels. The EWS Board will sponsor a panel on Wharton and work (chaired by Donna Campbell), and several proposals were made for the second panel: languages, accents, and dialects; Wharton and illness; Wharton and nature; Wharton and the money question; and Wharton and film. After a close vote, “Wharton and Film” was chosen; it will be chaired by Edie Thornton
Treasurer’s Report: Carole reported that the treasury was sound and that we have about $14,000 in our account, much of which will be used for the Roehampton conference. Carole and Annette Zilversmit are in charge of finding a restaurant for this year’s annual Wharton dinner at MLA in December. The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 a.m. Respectfully Submitted, Donna Campbell, Secretary
The Edith Wharton Society 