The 59th annual meeting of the English Institute explored new work under four headings, a topic, a genre, an author, and a text for group discussion. The topic panel, Compassion, marked out a domain of attachment, of love, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. The discussion of genre explored the formation of cultural categories, the subject, and sexuality in Renaissance prose. Rethinking the sympathy/compassion for which George Eliot is famous, the author panel engaged, in different ways, the renewed interest in ethics, affect, and the novel. Adorno’s “Resignation,” a brief essay, in which he reflects on the responsibilities of intellectuals, was the subject of the roundtable discussion.
Participants were encouraged to re-read Theodor Adorno’s essay “Resignation” (published in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, 1998).
Friday
9:30 a.m.
Lee Edelman, Tufts University
“Compassion’s Compulsion”
Compassion
11:00 a.m.
Candace Vogler, University of Chicago
“Much of Madness and More of Sin: Compassion, for Ligeia”
Compassion
2:00 p.m.
John Guillory, New York University
“The Bachelor State: On Marriage and the Single Life in Bacon’s ‘New Atlantis’ ”
Renaissance Prose
3:30 p.m.
Laurie Shannon, Duke University
“Prose Tails”
Renaissance Prose
5:30 p.m.
Reception
Barker Center-Thompson Room
Saterday
9:30 a.m.
Peggy Phelan, New York University
“The Compassion of Andy Warhol”
Compassion
11:00 a.m.
Lisa Jardine, University of London
“Textual Therapies: Dosing the Ailing Subject”
Renaissance Prose
2:00 p.m.
Carolyn Williams, Rutgers University
“Moving Pictures”
George Eliot
3:30 p.m.
Mary Ann O’Farrell, Texas A&M University
“Charity Work”
George Eliot
5:00 p.m.
Members Meeting
Sunday
9:30 a.m.
Neil Hertz, The Johns Hopkins University
“Fatal Compassion”
George Eliot
11:00 a.m.
Asha Varadharajan and Cornel West will lead a discussion of
Adorno’s “Resignation”
Program director
Peter Stallybrass
The Supervising Committee welcomes your ideas for next year’s topics and speakers. Please send suggestions to committee members either by e-mail (englinst@fas.harvard.edu) or in writing prior to the beginning of the 2000 conference.
The English Institute
The Humanities Center
Harvard University
Barker Center
12 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138