In both her life and her literary work, American writer Edith Wharton was a keen observer and recorder of the interrelationship(s) between power and community at the end of the 19th century and throughout the early decades of the 20th. Born into the world of wealth and privilege of “Old New York” society, Wharton grew weary of its longstanding communal norms and constraints. At the same time, however, she was also openly critical of the ostentation and conspicuous consumption on display during the annual Newport, RI “summer season.”

This roundtable offers an opportunity to consider the many ways in which community and empowerment intersect--and come into conflict-- in Edith Wharton’s life and work. Topics to be considered might include, but are not limited to

⁃ empowerment as a form of transformation in Wharton’s fiction 
⁃ Wharton’s attitudes towards authority (and authoritarianism) in the early decades of the 20th century 
⁃ Wharton’s conception and creation of empowered spaces through interior design
⁃ agency—and its limitations—and Wharton’s fictional protagonists
⁃ collaboration and collective action, in Wharton’s life and/or her literary production
⁃ the pursuit of local (or international) “knowledge” as a locus of community in Wharton’s life and work ⁃ the family as a site of power (and occasionally community) in Wharton's fiction

Roundtable participants will each give a brief presentation (5-10 minutes); the session will then be open to additional conversation and debate. This session will be in a hybrid modality (in-person but accepting remote presentations).

https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22598