modernist studies

Announcing  

The 2019 First Book Institute

June 2-8, 2019

Hosted by the Center for American Literary Studies (CALS) at Pennsylvania State University

Co-Directors

Sean X. Goudie, Director of the Center for American Literary Studies and Winner of the MLA Prize for a First Book

Priscilla Wald, R. Florence Brinkley Professor of English and Women’s Studies, Duke University, and Co-Editor of American Literature

The Ellen Glasgow Society seeks paper proposals for two sessions at the
30th Annual American Literature Association Conference.

Ellen Glasgow: Across the Canon I and II

Papers that explore any aspect of or work in Glasgow’s canon and career are welcome.  Studies of works historically lacking significant critical assessment are particularly welcome. The following titles suggest a variety of possible topics and approaches:

The Urban Ellen Glasgow

Glasgow as Travel Writer

Cross-Genre Analysis: Glasgow’s Fiction vs. Poetry

Glasgow and the Critical Tradition Surrounding Her Canon

Glasgow Family Values

Glasgow and Animal Studies

Arthur Koestler, the man, has been in the forefront of academic interest in the past twenty years. In this period, three critical biographies have been published in English alone, another three in Hungarian, two in German, one in Spanish, and another one in French, in other words, on average, one volume every second year. While this is a luxurious situation few other authors can claim, the fact remains that although Koestler was a writer who wrote seven novels and a play, six volumes of autobiography, and more than twenty book-length works of non-fiction, the last book in English devoted to his oeuvre was published in 1984. In terms of academic articles and book chapters, the situation is hardly any better.

In celebration of the life and works of the eminent scholar Pierre Coustillas (1930-2018), we invite contributions for proposed panel(s) on Coustillas, George Gissing, and their writing to the Annual Literary London Society Conference. This meeting will be held on 11-12 July 2019 at the Institute of English Studies in the University of London. Coustillas has had a profound influence on Gissing and nineteenth-century studies. From 1969 to April 2013, he edited The Gissing Newsletter and subsequently The Gissing Journal, the organ for Gissing studies. In 1997, Paul F. Mattheisen, Arthur C. Young, and Coustillas completed their landmark project: The Collected Letters of George Gissing.