2002 Conference

The English Institute 2002

The 2002 meeting of the English Institute will explore new work under four headings, continuing our format (topic, genre, author, text) but with a few twists to allow for more resonance between the four panels. It has been our recent practice to have a panel on an individual author, selecting the individual on the basis of wide significance, influence, and popularity. This year, instead of choosing an individual author, we are devoting a panel to the topic of Author-Love, allowing a more general theoretical consideration of the sort of interest behind such choices of a particular author. The phenomenon of Author-Love could in fact be an example of the broad set of practices to be explored in the panel on Uncritical Reading. While our most basic disciplinary formation might be our belief in "Critical Reading," this panel will question the limitations of that view by considering the value of other reading practices, in other contexts, for other aims. Continuing with our interest in the varieties of passionate response, we have chosen for our genre panel to look at Polemic. Considering diverse polemical sites and discourses, we hope to garner a critical sense of how polemic functions as genre. With all our varied focus on passion versus criticism, we have selected Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" as this year's text for discussion. Over the past few years, we have ended English Institute with these group discussions of short key theoretical essays, affording us the unusual opportunity to work together on a text. This year we have decided to move further back in time to examine a fundamental text for our modernity. We are pleased to announce online registration for the 2002 Conference. You can now register online. If a fee is owed, we offer credit card processing including Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover, or you may print out the completed registration form to be mailed in with a check or money order. Our registration form is secure and your credit card transaction is protected by SSL, the internet standard for encryption. Click here to register online. 61th Session Friday - Sunday September 20 - 22, 2002 Thompson Room Barker Center 12 Quincy Street Harvard University Click here for lodging Click here for map I. Author-Love Directed by Claudia L. Johnson, Princeton University Saturday, 2:00 p.m. Helen Deutsch, University of California, Los Angeles Johnsonian Romance Saturday, 3:30 p.m. Sharon Marcus, University of California, Berkeley Author Love/Hate: Contemporary Novels, Victorian Subjects Sunday, 9:30 a.m. Ann Pellegrini, University of California, Irvine Authorial Accessorizing II. Polemic Directed by Jonathan Crewe, Dartmouth College Friday, 9:30 a.m. Amanda Anderson, The John Hopkins University Argument and Ethos Friday, 11:00 a.m. Louis Menand, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York What Was All That About? Kael's Attack on Sarris Saturday, 11:00 a.m. James Young, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Polemic as Process in the Sites of Memory III. Uncritical Reading Directed by Michael Warner, Rutgers University Friday, 2:00 p.m. Amy M. Hollywood, Dartmouth College Reading as Self-Annihilation Friday, 3:30 p.m. Lawrence Scanlon, Rutgers University Submissive Reading: Early Medieval Penitentials and the Body of Belief Saturday, 9:30 a.m. Vincent Crapanzano, CUNY Graduate School Reading and Rereading Otherwise IV. Kant Led by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University Sunday, 11:00 a.m. Roundtable on Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" (readings will be available online shortly) Coffee, Muffins, and Registration 9:00 a.m. each morning of the conference Lunch 12:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday (on our own) Reception A festive reception will be held on Friday at 5 p.m. For more information and registration materials, contact: Mary Elizabeth Wilkes, Conference Coordinator 12 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 617.496.1006 englinst@fas.harvard.edu