[This past
weekend, we held the fifth annual New England American Studies
Association (NEASA) Colloquium.
So this week I’ll share some responses to each of the five colloquia to date,
leading up to a special weekend post on AmericanStudies in 2015!]
On the three
presenters (other than this AmericanStudier) at our inaugural 2011 Colloquium.
1)
Elif
Armbruster: Future NEASA President Elif Armbruster presented on her first
book, Domestic
Biographies: Stowe, Howells, James, and Wharton at Home (2011). What
stood out most to me in Elif’s presentation—and would become a model for my own
subsequent book talks—was her use of multiple media and genres to share her
work: photographs and primary documents alongside her own ideas and analyses. The
combination made for a coherent, compelling way to share and publicize her
important book.
2)
Lori
Harrison-Kahan: Like Elif, Lori shared work from and related to her
newly-released first book, The
White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black-Jewish Imaginary (2011).
In my own 2011 book, Redefining American
Identity, I had just started to articulate my own ongoing interest in
cross-cultural encounters and transformations, and Lori’s talk—like her book—provided
a strong model for me, particularly in the skill of closely reading literary
and cultural works through that cross-cultural lens.
3)
Maggi
Smith-Dalton: As the hyperlinks in that post indicate, I’ve written a good
bit about Maggi in this space over the years, and for good reason: she (along with her husband Jim Dalton) is and
long has been one of the foremost public AmericanStudiers in New England. I didn’t
need any one presentation or colloquium to know that, but Maggi’s 2011
presentation highlighted with particular clarity one of her most significant scholarly
skills—pulling together music, art, literature, and history to weave a compelling
story of the past and its resonances for our own moment and world. Just one of
many ways in which I’ve learned a lot from Maggi, as I have from all three of
these 2011 presenters!
Next follow up tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Work, of yours or otherwise, you’d share?
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