Saturday, 22 April 2017
The annual business meeting of the Andrew Marvell Society was called to order at 08:30 by President Alex Garganigo.
Members present
Present were Stephanie Coster, Kelly Duquette, president emeritus Martin Dzelzainis, Geoffrey Emerson, secretary emeritus Joan Faust, President Alex Garganigo, Kevin Laam, president emeritus Nicholas von Maltzahn, president emeritus Sean McDowell, Brendan Prawdzik, Amy Sattler, and president emeritus Nigel Smith
I. Approval of Minutes
The minutes of our last meeting in St Louis and our ad hoc meeting at RSA Chicago were approved.
II. Old Business
- We celebrated the Society’s three conferences in 2016 (St Louis, Boston, and Mulhouse/Strasbourg), the last of which has led to a double special issue of Marvell Studies; we also noted the success of the meeting at RSA Chicago three weeks ago.
III. New Business
- The dates of future meetings were confirmed: RSA 2018 (22-24 March, New Orleans, deadline c. 1 June 2017); SCRC 2018 ([12-14] April, Atlanta, deadline c. 1 December 2017).
- Session topics for the next SCRC meeting were discussed: ‘Young Love’ was chosen as the topic of a special session; other possible topics included ‘Thinking with Marvell’s Lyrics’; ‘Marvell and the Celtic Fringe’; ‘Marvell and the Dutch’; and the catch-all ‘Marvell and Literary History’
- The possibility of adding a ‘mini plenary’ at SCRC 2018 was considered — i.e. devoting a panel session to a single keynote paper. The suggestion was positively received and will be pursued further by the President.
- Following the report by the Vice President in Chicago and the further points raised there, it was agreed that the advisory board of Marvell Studies would continue to operate with relative autonomy from the Executive Committee of the Society. The Executive Committee however maintains oversight of the editorship of the journal, which, it was suggested, should be term-limited to three years with the possibility of renewal.
- The membership accepted the provisional decision taken at RSA to disjoin the responsibilities of Webmaster from those of Editor of Publications, since the Society’s publishing activity no longer falls under the auspices of the Society’s website. It was suggested that responsibility for the website might be shifted to the portfolio of the Executive Secretary. Unfortunately, the current Executive Secretary, Emma Wilson, could not be present because of a personal emergency, and we could not ask her whether she would be able to assume responsibility for maintaining the website. The President will follow up on this. Options for placing the Society’s website on a Society-owned server were also discussed.
- It was resolved that these issues bear revisiting at the next business meeting.
IV. Elections
- Geoffrey Emerson (U Alabama) was elected to serve as a Member-at-Large for the term 2017-20.
- Joanna Picciotto’s (UC Berkeley) election (at the ad hoc meeting in Chicago) as a Member-at-Large for the term 2017-20 was duly confirmed.
- It was moved and agreed that, in years where two business meetings are held, one Member-at-Large will be elected at each meeting.
V. Thanks
- Brett Hudson and Brendan Prawdzik were thanked for their diligent service on the Executive Committee.
VI. Adjourned
The meeting was adjourned at 09:00.
Respectfully submitted,
Alex Garganigo, President of the Andrew Marvell Society
Matthew Augustine, Vice President of the Andrew Marvell Society