Eudora Welty Newsletter

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Calls for Papers and
Conference Announcements

• CALLS FOR PAPERS

Eudora Welty Society at the American Literature Association
May 25-28, 2006
San Francisco, CA
Hyatt Regency, Embarcadero Center

"They are fearless": Women Writers Cross the Color Line
Eudora Welty and Other Others

In an interview, Toni Morrison identifies Nadine Gordimer, Lillian Hellman, and Eudora Welty as among her favorite writers: "Perhaps it is because they are all women who have lived in segregated areas of this country or in an area where there is apartheid. They are fearless. Nadine Gordimer and Eudora Welty write about black people in a way that few white men have ever been able to write. It's not patronizing, not romanticizing--it's the way they should be written about." In another interview, Morrison states "Nadine Gordimer writes about black people with such astounding sensibilities and sensitivity--not patronizing, not romantic, just real. And Eudora Welty does the same thing. Lillian Hellman has done it. Now, we might characterize these women as geniuses of a certain sort, but if they can write about it, it means it is possible. They didn't say, "Oh my God, I can't write about black people": it didn't stop them" (Conversations with Toni Morrison, 41, 97).

The Eudora Welty Society seeks papers on Welty and other women writers of her generation ("geniuses of a certain sort") who have lived in segregated societies and crossed or confronted the color line. Writers need not be from the United States--they may be British or European, Asian, African, Caribbean, Central or South American, Canadian. Papers should engage with some aspect of the work of these writers that is shared (or can be contrasted with) the work of Welty. Possibilities include the following: growing up apartheid (children and youth); eroticism and maternity; cross-cultural (or racial or ethnic) mentoring; magic, folklore, myth, mystification--Magical Realism in the work of mid-20th century women writing in, from, and to segregation and apartheid; madness and memory in apartheid; violence and the body; writing and protest; women writers and criticism; reception studies. Other ideas are welcome.

Please send queries or 300-word abstracts by January 5, 2006 to Barbara Ladd, Vice-President, Eudora Welty Society, Department of English, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322. E-mail to bladd@emory.edu. Fax: 404/727-2605 (note clearly that fax is for Barbara Ladd). Tel: 404/727-7998.

Eudora Welty Society session at the 2006 SCMLA
Convention

10/26/06-10/28/06 in Fort Worth.

Open topic: 20-minute papers on any aspect of Welty's work, life, or critical reception; all approaches welcome.

Email 500 word abstracts to David McWhirter at
d-mcwhirter@tamu.edu, or mail to 166 Sand Hill Cove Road, Narragansett,
RI 02882. Deadline March 15, 2006.

• CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Topic "Eudora Welty’s Liberal Imagination"
Society for the Study of Southern Literature
Radisson Hotel, Birmingham, Alabama
March 30-April 2, 2006

This panel will focus on Eudora Welty’s liberal imagination. For this purpose we will interpret the term “liberal” broadly--in the political sense, as well as in terms of cultural and humanistic perspectives.

Sally Wolff
Associate Dean
Office for Undergraduate Education
Emory College

Telephone: 404-727-0674
Fax: 404-712-9060
Email: swolff@emory.edu

Eudora Welty Society at the American Literature Association
May 25-28, 2006
San Francisco, CA
Hyatt Regency, Embarcadero Center

“Stealing the Language: Eudora Welty and Women’s Humor”

Alicia Ostriker writes that women have always tried to steal the
language -- to “seize speech” and so rework narratives inadequate to
describing women’s experience. (Ostriker, Stealing The Language: The
Emergence of Women’s Poetry in America, p 211) “Stealing the language”
can reiterate and/ or transform old speech in ways that provoke women
to liberated laughter.

Please send questions to pollack@bucknell.edu (Harriet Pollack, Bucknell University).