2003 Conference
The English Institute 2003:
Divided Loyalties
The 62nd annual meeting of the English Institute continues our custom of exploring exciting new work under four headings, but this year we have attempted to bring these headings under one guiding idea: Divided Loyalties. Inspired in part by how the events of 9/11 have compelled us to see attachments, allegiances, and convictions as never single but always torn, we will have a topic panel about “Cold War,” an author panel devoted to Rudyard Kipling and a genre panel on “Translation” in order to explore how divided loyalties have marked our political, social, and linguistic lives. And for this year’s concluding “Roundtable” we offer not the customary theoretical text for shared reading and group discussion, but a set of poems by Phillis Wheately, herself an instance of “translation” whose loyalties could hardly be more divided: “On being brought from Africa to America,” “Niobe in Distress for her children slain by Apollo,” and “To S.M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works.”
We can no longer accept web-based pre-registrations for the 62nd Session of the English Institute, as we have reached our full capacity. If you would like to be added to a waiting list, you may e-mail your request to englinst@fas.harvard.edu, or simply stop by the registration table to sign the list. First come, first served, for any remaining available seating. Thank you for your interest and support of the English Institute!
| Friday, 19 September | |
| 9:30 AM | Cold War Richard Rorty, Stanford University, Cold War Liberals |
| 11 AM | Cold War Robert Reid-Pharr, CUNY Graduate Center, Once You Go Black: American Intellectuals and the End of African-American Innocence |
| Lunch at 12:30 PM | |
| 2 PM | Rudyard Kipling Srinivas Aravamudan, Duke University, Metaphysical Intelligence-Gathering, or Kipling’s Guru English |
| 3:30 PM | Rudyard Kipling Lecia Rosenthal, Tufts University, Vulgar Loyalties |
| 5 PM | RECEPTION |
| Saturday, 20 September | |
| 9:30 AM | Rudyard Kipling Homi Bhabha, Harvard University, Divided Loyalties and Split Imperatives: Kipling’s Late Work |
| 11 AM | Cold War Deborah Nelson, University of Chicago, Table for One: Dining Out with the Pariahs |
| Lunch at 12:30 PM | |
| 2 PM | Translation Jacques Lezra, Wisconsin-Madison, The Indecisive Muse |
| 3:30 PM | Translation Lydia Liu, University of Michigan, The Ideograph as a Super-Sign |
| Sunday, 21 September | |
| 9:30 AM | Translation Andrew Parker, Amherst College, Marx Translates Freud |
| 11 AM | Roundtable Phillis Wheatley: Three Poems Discussion directed by Michael Moon, Johns Hopkins University Participants are encouraged to read these selected poems in preparation for the Sunday Roundtable discussion:
There are many wonderful and free on-line publications of Wheatley’s book, “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.” We recommend the Renascence Editions version which can be found athttp://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/wheatley.html. If you prefer to buy the full book of poetry, we recommend the 2001 Penguin edition, edited by Vincent Carretta |
For more information and registration materials, contact:
Mary Elizabeth Wilkes, Conference Coordinator
12 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
617.496.1006
englinst@fas.harvard.edu