newsletter

Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, 3d ed., Genève: J. L. Pellet, 1778-1779.
Plate I, "Fonderie en Caractères." Courtesy Princeton University Library

Conferences

NEASECS 2010:  Buffalo, New York, October 21-23
NEASECS 2009:  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, November 5-8

Deaths of Two Prominent Members of NEASECS

Peter Cosgrove, Dartmouth
Frank Shuffelton, University of Rochester

Calls for Papers

English Catholic Women Writers, 1660-1829
Leibniz Society
Hume after 300 Years

NEASECS Business

Annual Financial Statement
Minutes of the NEASECS Business Meeting
Proposed Amendments to NEASECS Constitution

News of Members

2009-2010 Membership Dues

Open this newsletter as a .pdf file

 

NEASECS 2010:  Buffalo, New York, October 21-23

Lisa Berglund, chair of the 2010 Annual Meeting, sends the following invitation and progress report:
Your colleagues in Buffalo, New York are hard at work organizing the 2010 annual meeting of the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. The conference website, www.buffalostate.edu/neasecs, is now up and running, and we are inviting submissions of proposals for papers, due 15 May. Contact Erik Seeman, chair of the program committee (seeman@buffalo.edu).

The conference theme – “Inquiry, Pedagogy, Exploration: Studying the Eighteenth Century� -- invites discussion both of how inquiry and education were carried out during our period, and also of how we teach the eighteenth century today. Two distinguished scholars will contribute to our exploration of these issues: keynote speakers Sue Juster, professor of history at the University of Michigan, and Patricia Johnston, professor of Art History at Salem State College. 

We are organizing a special subvention for secondary-school teachers who wish to attend the conference on Saturday only; that morning will include the opportunity for teachers to participate in a round­table discussion of the place of eighteenth-century studies in the secondary classroom. Visit the website later this spring for details.  

There will be plenty of opportunities to explore Buffalo. Our Friday night reception will be held at the Western New York Book Arts Center, and we are organizing a trip to Old Fort Niagara. Built in 1726, it is the oldest continually occupied military site in North America, held successively by the French, the British and the United States. Plans are also underway for a concert of eighteenth-century music, and for a guided tour of Buffalo's architectural highlights, including buildings designed by H. H. Richardson, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Sullivan. The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library is a very short walk from the hotel, and will be featuring an exhibit on the Kelmscott Press. 

And yes, there will be food. Buffalo invented Buffalo wings. We eat them unironically. 

The meeting will take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 21-23 October 2010.  The conference is hosted jointly by two State University of New York institutions: Buffalo State College and the University at Buffalo, and the organizing committee also includes faculty from Canisius College. 

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NEASECS 2009:  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, November 5-8

The fact that our 2009 annual meeting, held in Ottawa November 5-8, was a joint meeting of NEASECS and CSECS, the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies enabled Frans De Bruyn and his program committee to put together an unusually rich program.  The conference theme, “The Making and Unmaking of Empires,� focused attention on the worldwide impact of the Seven Years War.  The two plenary lectures were devoted particularly to the North American theatre of that conflict: Alain Beaulieu, of the Univer­sité de Québec a Montréal, spoke on “De la mediation à la protection:  les sens de la Conquête pour les Auto­chtones du Canada,� and Fred Anderson, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, asked whether 1759 was indeed a “Year of Decision.�

Several papers in seminars were also addressed to that pivotal year:  Swann Paradis, of York University, spoke on “Buffon in 1759�; John Sitter, of the University of Notre Dame, identified“A Poetics of the Long 1759�; Joe Galbo of the University of New Brunswick found “Ghosts of 1759� in the reflections of Alexis de Tocqueville on democracy in America; Thomas Keymer of the University of Toronto discussed “British Poetry and Global War in 1759�; and David McNeill of Dalhousie University analyzed the 1759 poem “A Dialogue betwixt General Wolfe, and the Marquis Montcalm, in the Elysian Fields.�

Members who took time away from the conference to explore the city of Ottawa also had a rich experience.  I spent an enjoyable and informative afternoon in the Canadian Museum of Civilizations and was particularly gratified to learn more about the eighteenth-century history of Canada.

All members who attended this meeting are grateful to Frans De Bruyn and his committee for their diligent and productive work.

Deaths of Two Prominent Members of NEASECS

In the past year, our Society has lost two of its prominent members – Peter Cosgrove of Dartmouth, chair of the Society’s 2007 Annual Meeting, and Frank Shuffelton of the University of Rochester, a founding member of NEASECS who served as its president in 1995.

Peter Cosgrove, Dartmouth

Anna Battigelli of SUNY at Plattsburgh, the 2007 president of NEASECS, wrote the following tribute to Peter Cosgrove:

As some of you know, Peter Cosgrove of Dartmouth College died suddenly on July 22 at his home in Lyme, New Hampshire.  Peter was an admired teacher and scholar.  He was an indefatigable host for a splendid 2007 NEASECS meeting at Dartmouth.  His death comes as a shock to all of us, and it is fitting that we pause to remember him at this 2009 meeting in Ottawa.

True to his eighteenth-century interests, Peter was perpetually at war against dullness.  Folly, pretentiousness, pride, simple-mindedness—each elicited Peter’s satiric spirit.  Satire was his song.  His caustic humor, seen in criticisms of the academy, the general public, and the nation could be both entertaining and therapeutic.  Perpetually on guard against intellectual impostors, he held people at a distance until they established their credentials.  Even then, they remained under scrutiny, even as they were invited to laugh with him at the absurdity of the world. 
Yet when confronted with a genuine intellectual problem, like the role of the implied author in history writing, Peter’s energies became reverential, even lovingly attentive.  His well-received Impartial Stranger: History and Intertextuality in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire methodically examines the complexity of Gibbon’s narrative design.  It is both a brilliant achievement and a labor of love.  Peter’s intellectual curiosity could not be bound by period or disciplinary constraints.  Although he never abandoned eighteenth-century literature, he taught courses on or wrote about film adaptations of eighteenth-century novels, feminism, Irish literature, the culture of the Cold War, and music.  His understanding of the disciplines he studied was refreshingly deep.  His students recall his devotion as a teacher; they loved him and learned from him.   

Finally, like the best satirists, Peter loved good company.  What I remember most from his superb, detail-oriented hosting of the 2007 NEASECS conference was his determination that NEASECS members have time to talk informally, outside of sessions, preferably with wine.  Possessed of both a powerfully satiric spirit and deeply felt sentiment, Peter Cosgrove embodied the contradictions of the period he knew so well.  We have lost a superb conference host, an accomplished scholar, and an admired teacher.  Within this Society, we will particularly miss Peter’s genuine affability, his satiric edge, his humor, his devotion to excellence.  For ever, brother, hail and farewell.

Frank Shuffelton, University of Rochester

Frank Shuffelton of the University of Rochester was among the founders of NEASECS when it began at that university in 1977.  Beginning in 1978 he became Secretary-Treasurer of the organization; one of his duties at that time was publishing the Society’s newsletter.  In 1995 he served as president of our organization.   When I succeeded Julie Hayes and Raymond Hilliard as NEASECS Newsletter Editor, Frank was most helpful and encouraging to me.  John Michael, chair of the Department of English at the University of Rochester, a close friend and colleague of Frank’s, has prepared the following tribute to him:

Professor Frank Shuffelton, distinguished professor of Early American literature, renowned authority on Thomas Jefferson, and a founding member of NEASECS, died this spring in Rochester, New York at the age of 69.

Frank joined the University of Rochester English Department in 1969, having completed his BA at Harvard and his Ph.D. at Stanford.  He spent the whole of his prolific career as a scholar and critic of American literature with particular interests in the seventeenth and more recently the eighteenth centuries at the University of Rochester.  Despite the depth of his engagement in the earlier periods, he also published significant work on Ralph Waldo Emerson and on American transcendentalism.  After his first book, Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647, which was published in 1977 and remains an indispensable work on that important figure in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Frank’s attention came to focus on the American Enlightenment generally and on the protean figure of Thomas Jefferson more particularly.  In addition to the dozens of influential articles that Frank wrote on Jefferson’s life and thought—articles in which he situates Jefferson in his time, investigates Jefferson’s attitudes toward race, explores his engagements with science, religion, and philosophy—he completed, in the early nineties, one of the great resources in the growing field of Jefferson studies:  a two volume, comprehensive, annotated bibliography of writings about Jefferson that begins in 1826 and ends in 1990.  Thomas Jefferson:  A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Writings about Him is a monument to scholarly commitment, generosity, and intelligence. 

These virtues were always the hallmarks of Frank’s engagement with the profession as a whole.  Several generations of scholars of Early American literature recognize a personal and professional debt to Frank, whose cheerful and encouraging presence at conferences and whose willingness to encourage and assist younger scholars, like his sometimes mordant wit, remains something of a legend in the field.  The collections of essays on early American literature and culture that Frank edited, collections like A Mixed Race:  Ethnicity in Early America, The American Enlightenment, and just this last year The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson, always included essays by younger critics who have gone on to help redefine and transform the field.  In recognition of his many accomplishments—including a Mellon and an NEH Fellowship—Frank received a lifetime achievement award from the Early American Literature section of the Modern Languages Association in 2007.  In the midst of all this, Frank served as President of NEASCS, as Director of College Writing, and as Chair of the English Department at the University of Rochester.  After his retirement in 2007, he continued to pursue new research interests in eighteenth century book culture and, of course, new perspectives on Thomas Jefferson.   Friends and colleagues here at the University of Rochester and, indeed, my fellow Americanists across the nation and around the world, will miss him sorely.

CALLS FOR PAPERS

English Catholic Women Writers, 1660-1829

Proposals are being solicited for a special topics issue of Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature.  The issue will focus on English Catholic Women Writers, 1660-1829.  It will examine their imaginative work as it was inflected by Catholicism or through self-identification with a Catholic minority culture during the long eighteenth century.  The editors invite articles on eighteenth-century Catholic women from the British Isles, including exiled English women working abroad or in the colonies.

Most of the essays will concentrate on women writers, but essays on other forms of women's imaginative work, particularly the visual and domestic arts, are welcome.

All essays should be informed by the rich repository of recent work in early modern Catholic studies.  Articles should not exceed 25 pages (6250) words) and should conform to the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.  All submissions should be in Microsoft Word.  Initial queries and abstracts are encouraged, though final acceptance will be determined by the completed essay.  Please send abstracts by June 1, 2011 (earlier is best) and final submissions via e-mail by September 1, 2011 to both Anna Battigelli, English Department, SUNY Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh, NY  12901, a.battigelli@att.net; and Laura M. Stevens, editor, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, English Department, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK  74104; laura-stevens@utulsa.edu

Leibniz Society

The Fourth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America will be held at the University of Houston, in Houston, TX, on 3-5 December 2010. Papers on any aspect of Leibniz’s philosophy will be considered and should have a reading time of approximately 45 minutes. Abstracts of no more than 700 words should be submitted by email attachment, in either Microsoft Word or PDF format, to Gregory Brown at the University of Houston (gbrown@uh.edu) by 15 July 2010. Once the program is set, it will be posted at http://www.gwleibniz.com/lsna_houston/ , along with information about accommodations.

Hume after 300 Years

The 38th International Hume Society Conference will be held at the Old College, Edinburgh, July 18-23, 2011.  Keynote speakers will include Annette Baier, David Fergusson, Don Garrett, John Pocock, and Amartya Sen.  Papers are invited on any aspect of Hume studies. Papers should be prepared for blind review and sent to submissions@humesociety.org. Deadline:  October 31, 2010.  For further information, contact James Harris at jah15@st-andrews.ac.uk.

NORTHEAST AMERICAN SOCIETY
FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES
ANNUAL FINANCIAL STATEMENT
(September 1, 2009)

Rondout Savings Bank
330 Broadway
Kingston, NY 12401
845-331-0073
Checking Account # 0601 13219 9
CD Account # 0102217579

Beginning Balance of Total Funds 
$30,129.15

Beginning Balance, Checking Acct.
$10,124.40

Income:

Membership Dues Rec’d. (to Sept. 1, 2009)
345.00

Membership dues collected at Conference (Geneva, 2009)
915.00

Conference proceeds (Geneva, 2009)
3,280.00
Interest (to Sept. 1, 2009)

  
19.30
Sub-total:
$  4,559.30

Expenses:

  

Gift for conference organizer    

$ 100.00

Edna Steeves Prize

300.00

John O’Neill Bursaries (4@$300)           

1,200.00

Newsletter Printing and Postage
51.41

Seed loan for Ottawa Conference
3,000.00
Sub-total:
$ 4,651.41
NET TOTAL
              
$10,032.29

BANK BALANCE (Checking Acct.)        

$10,032.29
   
Beginning Balance, CD Acct.      
$20,004.75

Income:

Interest at Maturity
$    656.60

   (Certificate of Dep.)  
$20,661.35
   

TOTAL NEASECS FUNDS ON ACCOUNT
$30,693.64

Respectfully submitted,
Nancy E. Johnson
Secretary-Treasurer, NEASECS

Minutes of the NEASECS Business Meeting
7 November 2009
Delta Hotel, Ottawa, Ontario
  1. Welcome:  President John Scanlan opened the meeting at 5:00 p.m., welcomed attendees, and commented on what a marvelous conference we had all enjoyed.
  2. Minutes:  The minutes of the 1 November 2008 meeting were approved.  Bob Craig made the first motion to approve; Alden Gordon provided the second; the vote was unanimous, with one abstention.
  3. Thank you:  President Scanlan offered a panegyric of thanks to Professor De Bruyn for his aplomb and cheerfulness as he organized another splendid conference in Ottawa.
  4. Professor Peter Cosgrove:  President Scanlan remembered Professor Peter Cosgrove, a long-time NEASECS member and organizer of the Dartmouth conference, who died in the summer of 2009.  John O’Neill read a statement by Anna Battigelli remembering and honoring Peter.  The reading was followed by a moment of silence.
  5. NEASECS Constitution:  President Scanlan encouraged NEASECS members to read the organization’s constitution.  John O’Neill noted that the constitution is posted on the Society’s web site.
  6. ASECS Affiliates:  Cathy Parisian spoke on ASECS affiliates.  She distributed ASECS brochures and welcomed us to become an affiliate member.  NEASECS has two slots on the ASECS conference program.  There will be a breakfast for affiliate societies at 7:30 on Saturday morning at the next ASECS conference.  Please email Cathy with any questions.
  7. Nominees:  John C. O’Neal moved that we accept the following slate of officers and new and continuing board members.  Alden Gordon provided the second.  The vote was unanimous, with one abstention.

    Officers:
    President:  Alden Gordon (Art History, Trinity College)
    First Vice President:  Frans De Bruyn (English, University of Ottawa)
    Second Vice President:  Arnd Bohm (German, Carleton University)
    Past President:  John Scanlan (English, Providence College)
    Secretary-Treasurer:  Nancy Johnson (English, SUNY at New Paltz)
    Newsletter Editor:  John H. O’Neill (English, Hamilton College)

    New and Continuing Board Members:
    Catherine Galouët (French, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
    Julie Hayes (French, University of Massachusetts)
    Peter Sabor (English, McGill University)
    Lisa Berglund (English, Buffalo State College)

  8. 2010 Conference:  Lisa Berglund discussed the 2010 conference, which will be held 21-23 October at the Hyatt Regency in Buffalo, NY.  The conference theme is “Inquiry, Pedagogy, and Exploration:  Studying the Eighteenth Century.�  We will be hosted by Buffalo State University and the University at Buffalo.  The deadline for panel proposals is 1 April 2010, and for paper proposals, 15 May 2010.

    2011 Conference:  President Scanlan opened the discussion of the 2011 conference.  He noted the significance of location (easy access by train or air).  Connecticut was cited as a convenient location, and possibilities will be explored.  President Scanlan noted the importance of a university willing to contribute some funds to the conference.

  9. Financial Report:  Nancy Johnson presented the Treasurer’s Report.  The report was approved.  John O’Neill noted the reduced costs of the newsletter.  It used to cost $1,000 a year to print and mail; it now costs approximately $30 to print and mail copies to the few members who do not read the Newsletter on the web.
  10. John H. O’Neill Bursaries:  Frans De Bruyn announced that he will accept applications for graduate student travel bursaries.  He will then forward the names so recipients to the treasurers of CSECS and NEASECS.
  11. Thank you:  Arnd Bohm made a motion, enthusiastically supported, to thank John Scanlan for his hard work and leadership as President of NEASECS.
The meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Nancy E. Johnson
Secretary-Treasurer

Proposed Amendments to NEASECS Constitution

The following proposed amendments are designed not to change anything of substance that we actually do but to bring the Constitution into line with current practices and to eliminate areas where it is inconsistent.  In accordance with the Constitution’s provisions for amendment, they will be brought to the Executive Committee and then to the Business Meeting in Buffalo in October for approval.

Article V (Organization), Section 4 (Committees)

Current Text:
(ii)       The Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the President prior to the business meeting.  It shall consist of one officer or member of the Executive Board who is not eligible to be, or who does not choose to be, a candidate for re-election; and three members of the Society who are not officers or members of the Executive Board.  The Nominating Committee shall present to the business meeting nominations for the following positions:  Vice President, members of the Executive Board, one member of the Program Committee, and, when appropriate, Secretary/Treasurer.  Nominations may be made from the floor, and the election shall take place at the business meeting.

Proposed Text:
(ii)       The Chair of the Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the President prior to the business meeting.  In consultation with the president, the Chair of the Nominating Committee shall select the other members of the Society who serve on the Committee.  The Committee shall consist of one officer or member of the Executive Board who is not eligible to be, or who does not choose to be, a candidate for re-election; and three members of the Society who are not officers or members of the Executive Board.  The Nominating Committee shall present to the business meeting nominations for the following positions:  Second Vice President, members of the Executive Board, and, when appropriate, Secretary/Treasurer and Editor of the NEASECS Newsletter.  Nominations may be made from the floor, and the election shall take place at the business meeting.

Rationale: These changes make the Constitution consistent with current practice and make the language of this section consistent with the rest of the document.

  1. The President normally selects the chair of the Nominating Committee, and the chair chooses the other members.
  2. Members of the Program Committee are not nominated by the Nominating Committee or elected by the membership.  Instead, the Program Chair chooses the Program Committee. 
  3. The Society amended the Constitution in 2005 to add the position of Second Vice President.  That officer succeeds over two years to the positions of First Vice President and then President.
  4. The Society amended the Constitution in 1989 to add the position of NEASECS Newsletter Editor to the Executive Board.

Article VI (Meetings), Section 1 (The Business Meeting):

Current Text:
The President, or in his/her absence the Vice President, shall preside at the business meeting.  The Secretary and the Treasurer shall make reports to the business meeting.  The business meeting shall transact business that may properly come before it, and shall elect officers and members of the Executive Board.

Proposed Amendment:  Change “the Vice President� to “the First Vice President.� 

Rationale:  This amendment, like the one above, makes the Constitution consistent throughout.

Article VI (Meetings), Section 2 (The Program), Subsection A (The Program Committee):

Current Text:
The Program Committee shall consist of a Chair, one member elected at the business meeting, and other members appointed by the President in consultation with the Chair of the Program Committee.  The Chair of the Program Committee shall, normally, be resident at the institution which is to be the host for the meeting for which the program is planned.

Proposed Amendment:
The Program Committee shall consist of a Chair and other members appointed by the Chair as required.  The Chair of the Program Committee shall, normally, be resident at the institution which is to be the host for the meeting for which the program is planned.

Rationale:  This brings the Constitution in line with practice.  Presidents of the Society do not appoint the members of the Program Committee.

News of Members

Cassandra Albinson (Associate Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art) has co-organized an exhibition on the portrait painter Thomas Lawrence, which will open at the National Portrait Gallery, London on 21 October 2010, and at the Yale Center on 23 February 2011. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Cassandra, Marcia Pointon, and Peter Funnell.

John Baird (English, University of Toronto) will retire on June 30, 2010. He will continue to serve as Associate Editor for Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Poetry on Repre­sentative Poetry Online (http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display/).  He hopes to use his new-found leisure to increase the number of poems that do not appear in current anthologies, so that teachers can draw on a variety of poems that are edited for undergraduates and readily accessible to their students.  His first venture is the trio of treatments of Juvenal's Third Satire: the translation by Dryden and the imitations by Oldham and Johnson (London).

Andrew Curran (French, Wesleyan University) is the author of two new articles, “Logics of the Human in Diderot’s Supplément au Voyage de Bougainvilleâ€� in New Essays on Diderot, James Fowler, ed., Cambridge University Press (forthcoming); and “Rethinking Race History: The Role of the Albino in the French Enlightenment Life Sciences,â€� History and Theory (Oct. 2009), 151-179.  He has also written “Pourquoi étudier la representation de l’Afrique dans la pensée du XVIIIème siècle?â€�  Introduction to L’Afrique du siècle des Lumières: Savoirs et représentations. Catherine Gallouët, David Diop, et al., eds., (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford Uni­versity, 2009).  Professor Curran’s new book, The Anatomy of Blackness: Theories of the African in French Enlightenment Thought, will soon be published by Johns Hopkins University Press.  He has been promoted to the rank of Professor of French at Wesleyan.

Jenny Davidson (English, Columbia University) recently received the Mark Van Doren Teaching Award at Columbia, given by the college's students to a faculty member for “humanity, devotion to truth, and inspiring leadership.â€�  Her new novel Invisible Things will be published in November.

Catherine Gallouët (French, Hobart and William Smith) is the author of “Spectateurs et écriture dans les Journaux de Marivaux,â€� Marivaux journaliste. Homage à Michel Gilot, Textes réunis par Régine Jomand-Beaudry, Saint-Étienne, Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 2009; of   â€œLe corps noir dans la fiction narrative du XVIIIe siècle (Voltaire, Montesquieu, Behn, de la Place, Castilhon, de Duras),â€� Le corps romanesque: images et usages topiques sous l’Ancien Régime, études rassemblées par Monique Moser-Verrey, Lucie Desjardin et Chantal Turbide, Québec, Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 2009;  “La mise en intelligi­bilité de l’Africain: l’exem­ple de Zingha,â€� L’Afrique au siècle des lumières: savoirs et représen­tations, éd. Catherine Gallouët, David Diop, Michèle Bocquillon, et Gérard Lahouati, Oxford, Oxford University Press, SVEC, May 2009; and of “Monstrueux, noble, triomphant: les modalités du corps africain dans la tradition narrative,â€� Les discours du corps au XVIIIe siècle: literature-philosophie-histoire-sciences, textes réunis par Hélène Cussac, sous la direction d’Hélène Cussac, d’Anne Deneys-Tunney, et de Catriona Seth, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2009.  Professor Gallouët has also presented two lectures: “Memories of Indochine,â€� Introduction, Screening, and Discussion, The Thomas and Catharine McMahon Lecture Series, Wesleyan University, April 15, 2010; a Seminar, ‘Genèse du film "Mémoires d’Indochineâ€�,’ Genèse autobiographique et collecte des traces, ENS, CNRS. rue d’Ulm, Paris, January 16, 2010; and ‘Le goût du vin chez Marivaux,’ ‘Taste in the Eighteenth Century,’ Seventh Landau-Paris Symposium on the Eighteenth century Universität Koblenz-Landau, Germany October 2009.

Vasiliki Grigoropoulou (Philosophy, University of Athens) is the author of ‘Desire and Will: The Sentient and Moral Self in Locke and Rousseau’, in Rousseau and Desire, edited by M. Blackell, J. Duncan, and S. Kow (Toronto University Press, 2009) and also of  ‘Displacement of Nature into Society:  Rousseau between Spinoza and Kant’, in Philosophical Writings (36).

Julie Hayes (Languages and Literatures, University of Massachusetts at Amherst) has published “Friendship and the Female Moralist,� in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 39 (2010).  She has recently been appointed Interim Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University for 2010-11.

Jocelyn Harris (English, University of Otago, Emeritus) spoke in March on “The Mansfield Theatricals and the Controversy over the Stageâ€� to the Huntington Library's Long Eighteenth-Century Seminar 2009-10. In "Frances Burney's The Wanderer, Jane Austen's Persuasion, and the Cancelled Chapters," published in Persuasions 31 (2009), she argues that Austen, after freely drawing on Burney for her novel, prevented her conclusion being overwhelmed by the The Wanderer by rapidly rewriting her last chapters.  In a chapter on Jane Austen for Adrian Poole's Cambridge Companion to English Novelists (CUP, 2009), Professor Harris examines Austen's appropriations, elaborations, transformations, and improvements of her sources to show that far from reacting simply to a canonical "tradition" of fiction, she took her material from a wide range of texts.  As she argues, Austen's relationship with other authors offers an entrance into her mind. 

Sharon Harrow (English, Shippensburg University) has published “Anna Maria Falconbridge,� in Dictionary of African Biography, ed. Henry Louis Gates & Emmanuel K. Akyeampong. (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2011); “Empire,� in Samuel Johnson in Context, ed. Jack Lynch  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2011); and “Having Text: Desire and Language in Haywood's Love in Excess and The Distressed Orphan.� Eighteenth-Century Fiction (Winter 2009-2010 issue).  Professor Harrow has recently been promoted to the rank of Professor.

Simon Kow (Early Modern Studies, Dalhousie University) is an editor, together with Mark Blackell and John Duncan, and of Rousseau and Desire (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009).   Contributing authors are John Duncan, Grace Roosevelt, Simon Kow, Vassiliki Grigoropoulou, Mark Blackell, Katrin Froese, Mira Morgenstern, and Brian Duff.

Mary Klinger Lindberg (Art, College of Mount St. Vincent) presented a lecture, “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words or Less,� at Mount St. Vincent College in May, 2010.

Dennis Mahoney (German, University of Vermont) reports that “Romanticizing the Everyday: Penelope Fitzgerald's ‘The Blue Flower,’� based on the talk he gave at the 2005 NEASECS meeting in Fredericton, New Brunswick on “The Eighteenth-Century Everyday,� has appeared in Blüthenstaub: Jahrbuch für Frühromantik 2 (2009), 277-289.

Mira Morgenstern (Political Science, City University of New York) has published “Politics In/Of the City:  Love, Modernity, and Strangeness in the City of Jean-Jacques Rousseauâ€� in Mark Blackell, John Duncan, & Simon Kow, eds.  Rousseau and Desire  (University of Toronto Press, 2009).

Maureen E. Mulvihill (Princeton Research Forum, NJ) recently published essays, with captioned images, on Jane Austen (Austen Ctr., Bath UK); Frances Burney (commissioned, Burney Society, Montreal); Margrieta van Varick & Dutch NY (Bard Graduate Center, NY); Ireland and the slave trade (NYU Ireland House talk by Nini Rodgers, Belfast); the Paula Peyraud Collection (Bloomsbury Auctions NY); Jack B. Yeats (NY Yeats Society); and Virginia Woolf (commissioned, Rapportage literary magazine, Lancaster, Pa.). Dr Mulvihill’s auction report on the Peyraud sale, and her review (with Images Gallery) of the Dutch NY show, set precedent in Eighteenth-Century Stds and in Seventeenth-Century News. Her essay on Woolf, with lead image of Woolf by Swedish artist Carl Köhler, is included in retrospectives of Köhler’s literary portraits (Barber Gallery, Vancouver; Regenstein Library, Chicago; Boole Library, Cork, IR.). At the 2009 STS Conference (NYU), Maureen spoke on her edition of Mary Shackleton Leadbeater’s Poems (Dublin & London, 1808) in the Irish Women Poets textbase (Alexander Street Press, Va., 2008); her edition includes a critical essay with images, a primary and secondary biblio., and a newly-recovered silhouette of Leadbeater in Quaker cap. In January 2009, Maureen was an invitee at the NY Irish Embassy launch of the Dictionary of Irish Biography, 9 vols (Royal Irish Academy/Cambridge UP, 2009), to which she contributed the Leadbeater article.

With Toni Bowers, his colleague at Penn, John Richetti is preparing their new abridged edition of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa for publication by Broadview Press this coming fall.

Deborah Ross (English, Hawaii Pacific University) has published “On the Trail of the Butterfly:  D. H. Hwang and Transformationâ€� in Beyond Adaptation:  Radical Transformations of Original Works, ed. Phyllis Frus and Christy Williams (McFar­land, 2010).  Her work of fiction “Bad Company,â€� was published in the e-magazine Stone's Throw; and another, “A Tale of Two Sisters,â€� received honorable mention in the Lorin Tarr Gill writing contest.  On June 19 Professor Ross will present “A Goldfish Out of Water:  Miyazaki's Little Mermaidâ€� at the Conference on Literature and Hawaii's Children at the University of Hawaii.

Erik R. Seeman (History, University at Buffalo) has published Death in the New World:  Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-1800 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).

Bonnie Hurd Smith (Indepen­dent Scholar) has published Letters of Loss & Love, Judith Sargent Murray Papers, Letter Book 3 (Hurd Smith Communications, 2010). During her adult life, Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) created letter books containing letters dated 1765 to 1818. She is thought to be the only eighteenth century woman who kept letter books in a long-term, systematic way.

Catherine Tite (Art History, University of Regina) is the author of Portraiture, Dynasty and Power: Art Patronage in Hanoverian Britain 1714-1759 (Cambria Press, 2010).

Austen's Oughts: Judgment after Locke and Shaftesbury, by Karen Valihora (English, York University), has been published by the University of Delaware Press through AUP.  The book explores Austen's emphasis on “what ought to beâ€� through eighteenth-century writing on judgment, and includes chapters on Shaftesbury, Richardson, Reynolds, Hume, and Smith.

Jack Russell Weinstein (Philosophy, University of North Dakota) has been promoted to the rank of Professor, effective August of 2010, and has become the director of the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life.  He is also the host of the public radio show “Why? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life,� a live call-in philosophy show.  His book Adam Smith's Pluralism: Rationality, Education, and the Moral Sentiments has been accepted for publication by Yale University Press.

If you have items for NEWS OF MEMBERS please send Name, Discipline and Affiliation, Recently published books, articles, etc. (please include bibliographic information) to John H. O'Neill, Department of English, Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, New York 13323-1292; joneill@hamilton.edu
(Queries and notes also welcome)

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