By Timothy Raylor
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It’s been another busy spring for the Andrew Marvell Society. A record-breaking five sessions (plus plenary Louis Martz Lecture) at South-Central Renaissance Conference in March, featuring several presenters from Past President Nigel Smith’s 2012 National Humanities Center Summer Institute, testified to the burgeoning of the society under Nigel’s leadership. A second outing in early April saw Marvell represented in two sessions at the Renaissance Society of America meeting in San Diego. (Read all about these conferences in the Executive Secretary’s report.)
Spring also saw changes among the Society’s officers. We said goodbye to two members of the Executive Committee, Gabriella Gruder-Poni and Alex Garganigo, and we thank them for their loyal service over the past three years. Our two new members are Ryan Netzley, of the University of Southern Illinois-Carbondale, and (an old friend and one-time president of the society), Nicholas von Maltzahn, of the University of Ottawa. In Omaha we were delighted to congratulate Joan Faust on her appointment to the Secretary-Treasurership of the South-Central Renaissance Conference. Joan has served for the last few years as an enthusiastic and efficient Executive Secretary of the Marvell Society and we are very grateful for her good-humored management of the Society as for her scholarly contributions to Marvellian study.
Happily for us, Emma Wilson has agreed to succeed Joan as Executive Secretary in 2014. The transition is now well under way. Emma brings to the Executive Secretaryship an interest in digital humanities and new media that will help us in our efforts to reach out to new constituencies. Andrew Marvell is now on Twitter!
And nor, when it comes to new media, is this all. Under the redoubtable leadership of our Webmaster, Matthew Augustine, the website continues to take shape. Members of the Society registered on the website now have access to the members’ area with its Forums for discussion of topics of Marvellian interest. If you are registered as a member you will have received an email explaining how to log in to the members’ area. If you need assistance, please contact Matthew at [email protected]
Finally, as we endure the heats of these long summer days, planning is already well underway for our gathering at South-Central Renaissance Conference in Tucson, Arizona, in the spring of 2014 (April 3-5), at which we’ll enjoy a session on Marvell’s tutoring, a roundtable on Eyes and Tears, and a plenary by Edward Jones of Oklahoma State University on the State Papers of Marvell and Milton. Paper proposals are due December 15. We’ll hope to see many of you there.
Carleton College