Emily Dickinson International Society
Announcements and Calls for Papers

Bulletin Editorship to Open
Emily Dickinson International Society at MLA
2007 Scholar in Amherst Award
Members-At-Large Election
Call for Papers:  Emily Dickinson and Contemporary Poetics
2008 Special Issue of the Emily Dickinson Journal

Bulletin Editorship To Open in 2009

Michael Kearns has informed the EDIS Board of Directors that he intends to step down as Editor of the Bulletin after the May/June 2009 issue. The Board is now looking for someone else to take over this demanding but very rewarding task.  The basic qualifications are that the candidate be a member of EDIS in good standing and a resident of the United States (to facilitate mailing).  The editor also must have excellent writing skills, be familiar with Dickinson’s biography and work, and be reasonably current with Dickinson scholarship.  The position is unpaid, but all normal expenses are reimbursed.  The position carries with it membership on the EDIS Board of Directors.

 The Board of Directors is looking for a candidate who would be prepared to assume full responsibility for editing the Bulletin in summer 2009.  Ideally the candidate would be able to work with Michael Kearns on the May/June 2009 issue before taking over the editorship.

 To apply, please send a resume and a letter of interest to Michael Kearns at the Department of English, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Blvd., Evansville, IN 47712.  He will be happy to answer inquiries at mkearns@usi.edu.

Emily Dickinson International Society at MLA

The Emily Dickinson International Society will sponsor two sessions at the Modern Language Association annual conference in San Francisco, December 27-30, 2008. By tradition, one will be an "Open" panel, for which proposals from any area of Dickinson studies are welcome. This year's second panel will be "Dickinson as World Poet." Papers might present Dickinson in the context of contemporary transatlantic or hemispheric studies, as an inspiration or challenge to other world poets, as a global phenomenon, as translated and received in across the world, as a thinker/poet of the world or for the world.

Please submit proposals of 200-300 words as an email attachment to Jed Deppman (jdeppman@oberlin.edu) by March 28, 2008.

 

Emily Dickinson and Contemporary Poetics
 

2008 special issue of the Emily Dickinson Journal
 

Emily Dickinson is canonical and popular but what aspects of her poetics are important today, and why? As a complement to the testimonials provided by individual poets in the 2006 special issue of the EDJ, we now seek broader, more scholarly essays on Dickinson's relevance to the way contemporary writers understand poetics, poetic lineage, the act of reading, and the nature or function of poetry.

Many of today's issues seem very far from Dickinson's Amherst: terrorism, multiculturalism, information flows, identity politics, Google, globalization, genocide, technology, Iraq, the environment... For poets now looking forward, is there anything indispensable or generative in all those nineteenth-century lyrics on death, nature, time, ecstasy, love, pain, God, faith, and trauma? What force is there to Dickinson's signature combinations of iambic meters, distorted syntax, latinate polysyllables, off-rhymes, personae, abstract nouns, compression, word alternatives, dashes, and tropes? Are poets writing with or against Dickinson, and why?

 

Topics include but are not limited to: the actual or potential relevance of Dickinson's poetics to contemporary or future genres, modes, schools, and theories of poetry; the utility of individual Dickinsonian techniques, themes, or vocabularies for today's creative writers; Dickinson's stylistic, thematic, or other impact on interdisciplinary or inter-arts production (poetry and history or philosophy, poetry and visual art, music, cinema, etc.).

 

We are interested in scholarly essays by both critics and poets. Submissions by poets must be accompanied by creative writing that is clearly relevant to their expository prose.

 

Proposals of 250-500 words, with creative writing if appropriate, accepted until August 15, 2007.

 

Completed papers of 10-25 pages will be due by March 15, 2008.

 

Send queries or full proposals to Jed Deppman jed.deppman@oberlin.edu or Jay Ladin ladin@usadatanet.net

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MEMBERS-AT-LARGE-ELECTION
 

At the 2006 meeting of the Emily Dickinson International Society, the Board of Directors decided to seat three Members-at-Large on the Board (instead of only one) with elections each year to replace one person rotating off, thereby increasing participation of the membership in decision-making. In March 2007 two Members-at-Large were elected, Barbara Dana and Cindy MacKenzie. Their terms will be staggered so they rotate off in successive years. In early 2008 the third Member-at-Large will be elected for a three-year term. Members can be re-elected. Society members are invited to present themselves as candidates for the anticipated vacancies.

 

The Board ordinarily meets once a year in conjunction with the Society's annual meeting (generally in the summer), and the Members-at-Large are expected to attend the annual meetings. Candidates should expect to fund annual meeting attendance either on their own or with institutional assistance. In addition, board members work during the year on Society projects and frequently communicate via email, regular mail, or telephone, at their own expense.

 

If you are interested in providing leadership for the Emily Dickinson International Society and supporting its mission of promoting interest in Dickinson and her poetry, you are invited to submit your name for consideration for the position of Member-at-Large. Members are eligible without regard for geography or profession. Nominations are also welcome. By February 2008, the Nominations Committee, headed by Ellen Louise Hart, will compile a list of candidates to present to the general membership for selection of the new Member-at-Large. There will be an election by mail in late February 2008, with the winner announced in the spring Bulletin.

 

Anyone wishing to become a candidate should contact Ellen Louise Hart, Chair of the Nominations Committee, by January 31, 2008, at ehart@ucsc.edu. Be sure to include a brief statement of goals and qualifications pertinent to your candidacy. If you wish to nominate a candidate, please ensure that the person is willing to run and ask him or her to forward the aforementioned statement to the Nominations Committee Chair.

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2007 SCHOLAR IN AMHERST AWARD COMPETITION

The Emily Dickinson International Society invites applications for the Scholar in Amherst Program. The program, which is awarded annually, is designed to support research on Emily Dickinson at institutions such as the Frost Library of Amherst College, the Jones Public Library, the Mount Holyoke College Archives, the Dickinson Homestead, the Evergreens, and the Amherst Historical Society. The award is a $2,000 fellowship to be used for expenses related to that research, such as travel, accommodations, or a rental car. A minimum stay of one week in Amherst is required. Recipients also may use the fellowship to initiate a lengthier stay in the area. Preference will be given to persons with completed PhDs who are in the early stages of their careers.

The Scholar in Amherst Program was inaugurated in 2002 by a generous donation from Sylvia F. Rogosa, made in honor of her daughter, Vivian Pollak, second president of the Emily Dickinson International Society . The 2003 award was named in honor of Myra Fraser Fallon, mother of EDIS membership chair Dr. Jim Fraser. The 2004 award was named in honor of renowned Dickinson scholar Brita Lindberg-Seyersted and those in 2005 and 2006 for Professor Everett Emerson to recognize his contributions to Dickinson studies as well as early American literature. This year’s Scholar in Amherst Award honors Suzanne Juhasz and Jane Donahue Eberwein, Dickinson scholars and founding members of the Emily Dickinson International Society.

To apply for the 2007 Scholar in Amherst Award, please submit a curriculum vitae, letter of introduction (written by the applicant), a two-page project proposal, and a brief bibliography, by October 15, 2007, to Paul Crumbley at PCrumbley@english.usu.edu or Martha Nell Smith at mnsmith@UMD.EDU. Letters of recommendation are not accepted as part of the application packet.

Past Calls & Announcements