Emily Dickinson International Society
Thursday, August 8, 2019 - Sunday, August 11, 2019
Conference Schedule

“To another Sea”: Dickinson, Environment, and the West

Thursday, August 8

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4:00 PM – 10:00 PM Registration - Individual Check-in (Front Desk)

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM Dinner (Crocker)

8:00 PM DAZZLED FACES: THE SOUNDS OF WELCOME NEAR (Kiln)

Conference Welcome:

Barbara Mossberg, President
Elizabeth Petrino, Vice President
Martha Nell Smith, Immediate Past President
Cathy Gable, Organizing Leader of the EDIS Local Chapter

Keynote Speaker: Sandra Gilbert, University of California, Davis (Emerita), "Reflections on Dickinson's ‘Wild’ Today” (Kiln)

Friday, August 9

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7:30 AM – 9:00 AM Breakfast (Crocker)

9:00 AM – 10:15 AM THIS TREMENDOUS SCENE--THIS WHOLE EXPERIMENT OF GREEN (Kiln)

Barbara Mossberg, Welcome – President’s Address and Conference Vision

10:15 AM – 10:30 AM Break

10:30 AM – 11:45 AM Session A

Panel: ECOPOETISM (Evergreen)
Chair: Marianne Noble, American University

1. Gina Claywell, Murray State University, “‘An awful tempest masked the air’: Dark ecology and Emily Dickinson”
2. Paul Crumbley, Utah State University, “Dickinson’s Sea and the Poet’s place in the world”
3. Daniel Manheim, Centre College, “Nature as the Medium of Mind: Dickinson and Humboldt”

Panel: DICKINSON AND THE SEA (SEE) (Oak Shelter)
Chair: Li-hsin Hsu, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan

1. Jeffrey Simons, Universidad de Huelva, Spain, “Dickinson Hearing the Wind”
2. Zoë Pollak, Columbia University, “Dickinson’s Sea Changes”
3. Yumiko Koizumi, Ibaraki University, Japan, “The American Scenery Through Dickinson’s Window”

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Lunch (Crocker)

1:00 PM – 2:15 PM Plenary Lecture Performance (Kiln):

Kit Young, “What Miss Dickinson Heard– And Didn’t – An Opera for Rhapsodist, Vocal Quartet and Duo-Pianist”

“What Miss Dickinson Heard – And Didn’t” is a devised chamber opera-in-progress for duo-pianists and vocal quartet responding to a “rhapsodist” who recites, chants, sings and acts. . The opera follows a large arc of Emily Dickinson’s life as if it were one day, by exploring Dickinson's depth of auditory artistry in evoking music and environmental sound – expressed in her poetry, letters, with some commentary by others. Emily Dickinson was an improvising pianist. Her soundscapes include all as music: human, animal, natural and celestial. Insect and birdsong resonate with performed excerpts of 19th- century parlor music, hymns and occasional moments of audience participation.

Asilomar Performers: Rhapsodist: Daniel Neer, Duo-Pianists: Eve Kodiak, Kit Young, Director: Ted Gorodetzky

2:30 PM – 3:45 PM Session B

Panel: POSITIVE AS SOUND: REBELLION AND DISSENT (Evergreen)
Chair: Renée Bergland, Simmons College

1. Helen Koukoutsis, Western Sydney University, “I love to buffet the sea”: The Role of the Sabbath School Visitor in Shaping Emily Dickinson’s Religious Dissent
2. Patrick Jackson, Columbus State University, “The Belles of Paradise”: The Image of Eve in Dickinson’s Later Poetry
3. Cynthia Hallen, Brigham Young University, "Emily Dickinson and the Western Saints"

Panel: DICKINSON AND OTHER WRITERS (Oak Shelter)
Chair: Regina Yoong, Ohio University

1. Vivian Pollak, Washington University, “‘Well, you can tell yourself that’: Gwendolyn Brooks's Heaven, and Emily Dickinson’s”
2. Carol Dietrich, DeVry University, “Inland Souls, Thoughtful Shoals, and Partial Wholes: A Comparative Analysis of Several ‘Sea’ Poems by Emily Dickinson and Robinson Jeffers”
3. Elizabeth Petrino, Fairfield University, “‘Was the sea cordial?’: Dickinson’s Echoes of Thoreau’s Inner Wild”

4:00 PM – 5:15 PM Session C

Roundtable: CROSSING BOUNDARIES – EMILY DICKINSON AND THE PERFORMING ARTS: REMEDIATION, INTERMEDIALITY (Evergreen)
Chair: Adeline Chevrier-Bosseau, Université Clermont-Auvergne, France

Participants:

Martha Nell Smith, University of Maryland, College Park
Barbara Dana, Independent Scholar
George Boziwick, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (retired)

Panel: ONTOLOGIES OF SYMPATHY AND INTIMACY, TIME AND DISTANCE (Oak Shelter)
Chair: Eliza Richards, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill

1. Jordan Greenwald, University of California, Berkeley, “Alone with the winds and you”: Dickinson's intimacy of distance
2. Renée Bergland, Simmons College, “Dickinson’s Death Kiss”
3. Marianne Noble, American University, “Dickinson Rethinking Sympathy and Human Contact”

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM Dinner (Crocker)

EVENING PROGRAM: LIGHTING OUR INNER FIRE

7:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Keynote Speaker: Wendy Martin, Claremont Graduate University, "Fifty Years of Looking at Emily Dickinson as a Woman" (Kiln)

8:00 PM – 9:00 PM Bonfire (Barbecue Area)

Saturday, August 10

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MORNING PROGRAM: ’TWAS SUNRISE--’TWAS THE SKY

7:30 AM – 9:00 AM Breakfast (Crocker)

8:00 AM – 10:00 AM

White Dress/Suit Parade Visiting the Sea – Join conference goers and civic arts leaders including EDIS Chapter members to walk to the sea, with literal or imaginary dog. “I started early – took my dog.” (Bus to Pacific Grove Public Library/Jewell Park Gazebo)

10:00 AM – 10:30 AM Break

10:30 AM – 11:45 AM Session D

Panel: DICKINSON, TRAVEL, AND MEMORIALS (Evergreen)
Chair: Jordan Greenwald, University of California, Berkeley

1. Páraic Finnerty, University of Portsmouth, “Gathered from many wanderings”: The Brontës, Dickinson and Travel Motif
2. Efrosyni Manda, National and Capodistrian University of Athens (Greece), “To shut our Eyes is Travel” (L 354) in Dickinson’s Fairyland
3. Melba Jensen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “Laying Laurel”

Panel: DICKINSON AFTER DARWIN: NEW ENVIRONMENTAL READINGS (Oak Shelter)
Chair: Paul Crumbley, Utah State University

1. Anne Goldman, Sonoma State University, “Dickinson Among the Heliotropes”
2. Katrina Dzyak, Columbia University, “Birds and Water: Extinction and Regeneration”
3. Amy Nestor, State University of New York at Buffalo, “‘Disclosed by Danger’2—Hauntings: Dickinson, Darwin, Anthropocene”

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Lunch (Crocker)

1:00 PM – 2:15 PM Session E

Panel: APPROACHES TO DICKINSON’S SOUND AND MUSIC (Evergreen)
Chair: George Boziwick, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (retired)

1. Emma Duncan, SUNY Brockport, Monroe Community College, “Defamiliarizing Faith: Emily Dickinson’s use of Hymn Meter, Scripture, and Metaphor”
2. Samantha Landau, Project Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, “‘Invisible, as music-‘: Sheet Music and Communication in the Dickinson Family”
3. Wendy Tronrud, Doctoral Candidate, CUNY Graduate Center, “‘Strange plants’: Abolitionism, Black Song and Emily Dickinson”

Panel: THE WESTERN LANDSCAPE (Oak Shelter)
Chair: Dan Manheim, Centre College

1. Asahina Midori, Keio University, Japan, “Reconsidering the Epistolary Exchanges between Emily Dickinson and Helen Hunt Jackson as Nature Essayist in the West”
2. Ryan Heryford, California State University, East Bay, San Diego, “‘the strength to perish is sometimes withheld:’ Dickinson's 'Western' Poetics of Decomposition”
3. Li-hsin Hsu, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, “‘To Pastures of Oblivion’: Dickinson and Western Wilderness”

2:30 PM – 3:45 PM Session F

Group Reflective Discussion: BIOGRAPHY AND BIO-PIC: WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO DO WITH READING DICKINSON’S POETRY (Evergreen)
Discussion Coordinator: Martha Nell Smith, University of Maryland

For the past three years, Emily Dickinson has been having yet another big cultural moment—in early 2017, the Morgan Library featured a special exhibition “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” accompanied one evening by a performance of Dickinson-inspired poetry and music by artist Patti Smith; a documentary This is My Letter to the World (2017) followed A Quiet Passion (2016) featuring Cynthia Nixon as a caustically witty epileptic Dickinson; Wild Nights With Emily starring Molly Shannon as a witty, fun, passionate, devoted to her sister-in-law and to poetry Emily Dickinson went into general release in spring 2019; and this fall the Apple TV series Dickinson starring Hailie Steinfeld as the poet and Jane Krakowski as her mother will start streaming. So that question sometimes cast as a knowing demand—“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”—is being provocatively posed (and answered) over and over and over again.

Focused on the biopic and designed to complement the conference’s sessions on Dickinson and music, this session will feature clips from the most recent biopic Wild Nights With Emily, perspectives from director Madeleine Olnek, and more to coordinate group discussion of film and television interpretations of Dickinson’s work and life.

Panel: SELF AND OTHER IN TIMES OF CRISIS: DICKINSON AND LITERARY HISTORY (Oak Shelter)
Chair: Páraic Finnerty, University of Portsmouth

1. Maria O’Malley, University of Nebraska, Kearney, “Emily Dickinson and Visions of Belonging”
2. Eliza Richards, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “Dickinson’s Somatic Inquiries”
3. Daniel Fineman, Occidental College, “After Words: Dickinson and the Post-Poetic”

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM BLAZING IN GOLD - AND QUENCHING - IN PURPLE

Conference goers are free to relax and rejuvenate on the beach, in walks, or in conversation with others.

EVENING PROGRAM: WHEN THE FEAST IS LAID WITHIN

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM INEBRIATE OF AIR AM I: EDIS Happy Hour, Phoebe’s Café

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Keynote Speaker: Alicia Ostriker, poet and scholar, "The Soul Selects:
Connecting the Dots Between Emily and Me" (Kiln)

7:00 PM – 10:00 PM Banquet Buffet (Barbeque Area)

Sunday, August 11

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MORNING PROGRAM: THAT THEY PRONOUNCE MY NAME

6:00 AM – 7:30 AM

I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose (Poets Reading Their Own Work at Phoebe’s Café)

7:30 AM – 9:00 AM Breakfast (Crocker)

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM Research Circle (Evergreen)

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Check Out)

TEACHING AND READING EMILY DICKINSON NOW MORE THAN EVER (Kiln)

Roundtable, Chair: Barbara Mossberg; Keynote Speakers, EDIS Membership

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Business Meeting

Concluding Discussion: Wrap-Up and Next Steps (Kiln)

NOON LUNCH (Crocker)