By Joan Faust
Report from the Executive Secretary by Joan Faust
The 2013 SCRC “Exploring the Renaissance” gathering in Omaha March 21-23 promises to be yet another lively and stimulating event, particularly for the Andrew Marvell Society. Our members will present their scholarship in five sessions. “Restoration Marvell,” exploring Marvell’s activities, relationships, and writing during that period, will feature Emma Wilson, Amy Sattler, and Martin Dzelzainis. Nigel Smith, Matthew Augustine, and Bryan Herek will enlighten us on “Marvell Among the Satirists,” which will trace Marvell’s connections with the likes of Ben Jonson, Richard Flecknoe, and the Scriblerians. “Elegy and Endings” is the topic of Greg Miller, Gregory Chaplin, and Ryan Netzley, who find common ground in Marvell’s elegies and “Appleton House.” Nigel Smith’s National Humanities Center Summer Institute in Literary Studies, “Andrew Marvell: Lyric and Public Poems,” resulted in a fruitful session, “Rehearsal Transpros’d: Managing Decorum within Networks,” composed of Institute participants Blaine Greteman, Brendan Prawdzik, and Alex Garaganigo. In a panel analyzing Marvell’s “Bermudas,” George Klawitter, Timothy Raylor, and Joan Faust will attempt to elucidate this perplexing poem. In addition, our own Professor Nicholas van Maltzahn of the University of Ottawa will deliver the annual Louis Martz Lecture with his presentation, “Andrew Marvell’s Paper Work: The Secretary-Poet.”
Adding to the Marvell Society presence at the conference is the new John M. Wallace Award established last year to be awarded to the best paper on Marvell by a graduate student, independent scholar, or faculty member below the rank of associate professor or equivalent. The $100 award will be presented at the closing luncheon on Saturday, March 23, 2013, by the President of the SCRC.
We hope all members will join us at the annual meeting of the Andrew Marvell Society on Saturday, March 23, probably at 8:15 a.m. before the 9:00 session that morning. Specific details will follow.
Local arrangements for this 62nd SCRC Conference are provided by Matthew K. Averett of Creighton University, while Tim Moylan of the St. Louis College of Pharmacy serves as Program Chair. The conference will be held at the Embassy Suites in downtown Omaha, with participants receiving a special rate of $142 per night if booked by February 6, 2013. Reservations may be made by following the link on the SCRC or AMS website.
In addition to this prominent presence at the SCRC, the Marvell Society will also sponsor two sessions at the upcoming conference of the Renaissance Society of America in San Diego, CA, 4-6 April, 2013. “Maritime Marvell” will feature Edward Holberton (Girton College, Cambridge) on representations of the sea in the late satires, Nigel Smith (Princeton) on Marvell and the Anglo-Dutch wars, and Nicholas van Maltzahn on Marvell’s Trinity House Letters. A session on “Marvell and Education” will examine Marvell’s use of the techniques of contemporary logic and dialectic in his poetry and prose: Robert Dulgarian (Emerson College) and Russell Hugh McConnell (University of Western Ontario) will examine (respectively) modal opposition and disputation in “To His Coy Mistress”; Emma Wilson (University of Western Ontario) will explore dialectical opposition in the poetry and the prose. A plethora of Marvellian delights! We hope to see you in Omaha and/or San Diego.
Southeastern Louisiana University