Past Local Meetings
February 20, 2002 - Boston University
Members from the Boston area, in the first local meeting held on February 20, 2002, had the pleasure and privilege of hearing the poet and translator David Ferry (Wellesley College) read and illuminate his translations from Horace (the Odes, published) and from Virgil (the Eclogues, published, and the Georgics, in happy progress). The humanity and beauty of the translations, and the candor and subtlety of the commentary, prompted a grateful conversation.
The meeting, held at Boston University, was attended by about thirty members, (from eight or nine colleges or universities), by the President, James Engell, and by the ALSC’s Administrator, Julia Wahnsiedler.
March 20, 2002 - Boston University
The second of the two meetings this semester was on 20 March, again at Boston University, when Daniel Chiasson, a doctoral student from Harvard, spoke on Robert Lowell. Pondering Lowell’s revisions under the aspects of names, of objects, and of poems, Mr. Chiasson first engaged with recent criticism of Lowell, conducting this with courtesy and patience, and then moved to imaginative inquiry and exegesis of particular poems. Fifteen of us were there, from half a dozen universities.
November 13, 2002 - University of California, Davis
On Wednesday, November 13th, the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics co-sponsored a talk by Professor Robert Alter (Berkeley) on the University
of California, Davis, campus. Professor Alter
spoke to approximately 30 faculty and students from
diverse departments on the topic of “Literary Language
and Literary Studies.” Professor Alter’s fifty-minute
presentation was nothing less than a veritable tour deforce on cadence, syntax, and diction, and covered,
virtually extemporaneously, a remarkable spectrum of
European and American literary greats, including
Faulkner, Fielding, Joyce, and Proust. A lively discussion
followed the talk, which was clearly greeted
with enthusiasm by all in attendance. The ALSC had
generously provided numerous copies of the Literary
Imagination and the Association’s newsletter for members
of the audience, all of which were quickly snapped
up at the conclusion of the event. — Winder McConnell
December 11, 2002 - Boston University
On 11 December 2002, William H. Pritchard (Amherst College) spoke at Boston University on “The Old Thomas Hardy.” An audience of nearly 30, from several colleges, heard with delight his evocation of the late volume “Winter Words,” from which he drew with precision and affectionate directness. There was a moving modulation from the wit and humor of the entrance upon the poems to the gravity and depth with which Bill Pritchard left them—and left us gratified and grateful. — Christopher Ricks
February 15, 2003 - University of California, Los Angeles
On Saturday, February 15, a
public symposium on William Shakespeare’s The Merchant
of Venice was held at UCLA Law School in
Westwood, California. The event was hosted by the
ALSC and organized by local ALSC members Daniel
Lowenstein and Larry Carstens.
The event, open to the public, was attended by about
thirty people. After welcoming remarks by Daniel
Lowenstein, two scenes from the play were expertly
performed by five members (three men and two women),
of the award-winning Interact Theatre Company
(www.interactla.org), based in North Hollywood, California. While the organizers had planned for them to do
just readings, they actually surpassed expectations by
performing, rather than merely reading, the scenes (including costumes, props and memorized lines). The
scenes were followed by a panel discussion as well as a
question and answer session with audience members.
For this second part of the event, the group moved into
a smaller, neighboring lecture hall after a short break.
The panelists followed with presentations of about 20
minutes in length. They were Stanley Stewart, President
of ALSC and Professor of English, UC Riverside;
David Rodes, senior lecturer of English, UCLA; and
Daniel Lowenstein, Professor of Law, UCLA. The presentations focused on a number of key themes of
Shakespeare’s timeless comedy, including language issues,
aspects of “the law” and “mercy” and, of course,
historical aspects of the time period of the play (the last
item was addressed very well by Debbie Kennel, of
UCLA’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
who also chaired the discussion). The presentations and
the conversations that followed showed, as one might
expect, a high level of engagement with the formal and
thematic aspects of the play. The conversation was, in
fact, so brisk that it carried on until nearly five o’clock that afternoon.
March 29, 2003 - Boston University
The meeting with Fred Wiseman on March 29 at Boston University, to discuss his new film La Dernière Lettre, was of great interest to those from half a dozen colleges who attended that evening. After a fascinating account of how the film came to be made, Mr. Wiseman took questions and gave as good as he took. The evening was marked by respect and illumination.
May 7, 2003 - Boston University
The meeting on May 7 was conducted by Gary Roberts, completing a doctorate at Brandeis University, spoke on “On the Wit of Poetic Naming.” Taking as his instances deliciously short poems by Swift, Landor, Frost, and Oldys, all of which play upon names, our speaker was himself at once wittily compact and alive to many different kinds of suggestion, both within the poems and from those who were present—a dozen or so from half a dozen institutions.
May 21, 2003 - CUNY Graduate Center
Rediscovering Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life: On May 21, 2003, a paying audience of some 250 at the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth Avenue watched and listened to a two-hour program about a writer who could not watch or listen to anything. The evening was cosponsored by the CUNY Center for the Humanities and the ALSC. The Association received an anonymous grant for the purpose. The event celebrated the centennial of the first publication for the Helen Keller’s book and its reappearance as “the restored classic” edited by Roger Shattuck and Dorothy Hermann (W. W. Norton, 2003). After a brief video of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, the actress Stockard Channing read passages from Keller’s book. Dorothy Hermann, Keller’s biographer, spoke with the title “Still a Mystery.” The writerneurologist Oliver Sacks, called to Australia by his brother’s illness, had prepared a video tape entitled “Helen Keller: Constructing a World.” Roger Shattuck read “What Helen Keller Saw,” a talk by Cynthia Ozick, who was unable to attend because of high fever. Stockard Channing read several more selections from The Storyof My Life to close the program. A lively discussion followed the program, which was arranged and presented by Roger Shattuck, former president of the ALSC.
November 5, 2003 - Boston University
On 5 November 2003, Timothy Peltason, who teaches at Wellesley College, spoke on “The Uncommon Pursuit: The Place of Judgment in Contemporary Criticism.” Fair-minded and strongminded, this was a humane argument for the recovery of much that had strengthened a critical tradition that valued full imaginative description of what it is like to read (or to see on a film-screen) a particular work of art. The subsequent discussion was gratefully vigorous. — Christopher Ricks
December 3, 2003 - Boston University
On 3 December 2003, Sara Jaye Hart, who is a doctoral
student in the Religion and Literature program at Boston
University, spoke on “The Shadow of Sacrifice: From
the Greeks to Contemporary America.” Pondering what
kind of loss or gain or surrender a sacrifice should be
held to constitute, Ms. Hart concentrated on the likeness
and unlikeness of Iphigeneia’s fate to the sacrifices that
move Faulkner and more recent American fiction. Again
there was a ranging and illuminating discussion.
Some small regret, only, that neither of these
occasions was as well attended as previous ones have
been. Enough of us were there, a dozen or so, from
several universities, for both occasions to be well
worthwhile, but it is to be hoped that participation is not
about to wane despite the wine. —Christopher Ricks
March 17, 2004 - Boston University
On 17 March, at Boston University, Robert Scanlan introduced a screening of Samuel Beckett’s Rough for Theatre II [roman numerals], followed by a vigorous discussion of the work itself, of the particular production, and of the larger questions of liberty and of liberties taken in the directing of Beckett. Mr. Scanlan, who teaches at Harvard, worked extensively with the playwright, and his commentary—which eschewed all anecdotal immodesties (nothing of “Sam, this, and Sam, that”)—was fascinating, and was much appreciated by an audience small but enthralled. The talk, revised for the difference of medium, will appear in a forthcoming issue of Literary Imagination. —Christopher Ricks
April 21, 2004 - University of La Verne (California)
A region meeting of the ALSC was held on 21 April, at
the University of La Verne. The event was in celebration of
Shakespeare’s birthday. ALSC member, Jeffrey Kahan, who
hosted the event, read a paper entitled “Shakespeare and Star
Trek: Beaming the Bard into the 21st Century.” The paper
argued that Star Trek continues to uphold the primacy of
Shakespeare as literally the universal genius. The discussion
that ensued was enlivened by audience members, some of
whom took pleasure in reciting “To Be or Not to Be” in
Klingon. There was also a lively but good-natured debate on
Shakespeare’s place in the curriculum of California public
schools.
December 8, 2004 - Boston University
On 8 December 2004, at Boston University, local members of the ALSC and their guests enjoyed a vividly provocative talk by Lisa Rodensky (Wellesley College). To be imaginatively puzzled by the first Mrs. Wilcox (of Howards End), and by her posthumous and inordinate influence upon the lives of those who had known her, proved to be an inaugurative critical step that led to a searching inquiry into the novel’s shaping and into its moral ministering. Dr. Rodensky’s humor and wit prompted questions that were ranging yet always germane. The discussion coursed, and so did the wine—while not settling as a vinous mist. These local meetings should not be mist. There will be others this semester. — Christopher Ricks
March 16, 2005 - Boston University
On Wednesday, March 16, at the Boston University Editorial Institute, ALSC member Marcia Karp led a lively discussion of Fiona Shaw’s performance of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land.” After seeing Shaw’s dynamic interpretation, a large and diverse crowd of students and Bostonian ALSC-ers debated its gains and losses in dramatizing the poem. The wine flowed freely, and Christopher Ricks all-but checked i.d.’s at the door! It was a vibrant, stimulating, and well-attended gathering of elder and junior scholars and lovers of literature, of the kind we hope to repeat often, not only here in Boston, but across North America as well.
March 15, 2006 - Boston University
On March 15, members of the ALSC and their friends listened to Samuel Beckett’s radio-play, Embers (forty-five minutes), and then were privileged, thanks to the attendance of Robert Scanlan, to engage in a heartfelt and headpondered conversation about this capacious chastening play. Professor Scanlan was about to present two staged radio-plays of Beckett’s (Words and Music and Cascando, with new music by Martin Pearlman) in New York in April—the centenary of Beckett’s birth—so the occasion was more than opportune for all of us.
March 29, 2006 - Boston University
On March 29, Don Share (curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room, and soon to take up the editorship of our Literary Imagination) spoke, again at Boston University, on “The Poet’s Voice and the Sound of Modern Poetry,” a delightfully provocative anthology-cum-history that drew upon the resources of the Poetry Room to help us hear, and listen imaginatively to, the voice of many an artist: Whitman, Tennyson, Browning, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Stein, through to Bunting and Tom Pickard. Our thanks to those who came and to those who contributed to these congenial occasions.
November 15, 2006 - Boston University
To honor the centenary of the birth of William Empson (the poet, critic, and sage who gave birth to so much modern thinking about feeling), there was a meeting at Boston University on November 15, 2006; Lisa Rodensky (Wellesley College) initiated and conducted a conversation that derived from our listening to a recorded conversation between Empson and Louis MacNeice, in which the two poets uttered, and uttered thoughts about, Empson’s poems; the recorded conversation was at one, in its humor and vivacity, with the conversation that took place in the room. Wine (Empson, true, preferred to call upon beer) helped.
November 29, 2006
Comedy was succeeded by a due sense of tragedy (and yet of hope) in the second of the local meetings: a report on the censorship and the publication of Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago poems, the story being told humanely and fairmindedly by Maria Gapotchenko (Boston University), with a wealth of illustration as to the poverty of spirit that suppressed and distorted the poems and their textual history. An occasion for gratitude to both or rather all concerned, and—complicatedly—for gratitude to those in the Soviet Union who did bring about an edition that, for all its limits, kept the poems alive.
March 29, 2007 - Boston University
On March 29, William H. Pritchard (Amherst College) spoke at Boston University’s Editorial Institute on “Eliot’s Mischievous Prose,” a fascinating talk which ranged widely and wittily through Eliot’s uncollected essays, reviews, and even answers to questionnaires, delving into what he described as “some un-mischievous prose,” as well. A podcast of this event is available.
April 25, 2007 - Boston University
On April 25, again at Boston University’s Editorial Institute, Debra San (Massachusetts College of Art) spoke on “Some poetic uses of the word and,” a compelling demonstration, at once precise and suggestive, of how great can be the creativity of what might seem to be the most modest of words. The presentation explored both indictments and defenses of the word, as well as “specific patterns of uses and some idiosyncratic ones.” A podcast of this event is available.
December 12, 2007 - Boston University
The havoc of Boston snow having abated, the local ALSC meeting welcomed Dr. Stephen Burt who spoke on sense of place in early Auden. To telescope “From scars where kestrels hover,” “Look there! The sunk road winding,” and “Who will endure,” Dr. Burt proposed two interpretive keys. First, that we consider the poems in terms of locus (“the immediate and sensory”) as opposed to region (“surrounding what we know”). Second, that we treat the poem itself as a walk or path through which the poet and the reader “accompany rather than replace nature.” What ensued was a lively discussion about place, idiom, abstraction and poetic locality. It compared Auden’s early work to poetries of D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy and Hart Crane, among others. With a full room that included two new members, the ALSC winter evening was a warm success. — Adam Fitzgerald
February 13, 2008 - Boston University
On February 13, 2008, Dennis Taylor (Boston College) spoke on “Hardy and Betjeman: the Catholic Fly in the English Ointment.” Our speaker, who is one of the great Hardy scholarcritics of our time, was characteristically witty, challenging, and informative in scrutinizing the Anglican church and those two concepts that not only are contraries but are each of them a contradiction in terms: Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. The discussion, like the Church of England, was Broad and High—and when Low, only in the good sense. A podcast of this event is available. — Christopher Ricks
April 23, 2008 - Boston University
On April 23, 2008, there was a presentation of the French poems of Samuel Beckett, with the poems read in the original by Rosanna Warren, followed by translations by Marcia Karp and Philip Nikolayev (the trio being from Boston University). The ensuing conversation was vivid, various, and alert to unexpected angles, inquiries, and remarkings, and there was a particular pleasure in holding this celebration on St. George’s Day, given the great Irishman’s famous reply to the inquiry as to whether he was English: “Au contraire.” — Christopher Ricks
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