Just re-checking interest; below, I'm pasting my suggested topic from the earlier post, but again, anything is welcome. If we're going to be serious about this . . . well, then we have to be serious about this. Formal proposals are due within weeks, which include bios from everyone involved, as well as a serious commitment to pay for registration fees and attend.
More people are welcome! Please want to do this! It should be a blast -- by all accounts, AWP is an awesome time.
Still, if people want to let this fade away, just don't respond, I guess. I know this is a year from now, but whatever -- I'm not in a position to apologize for AWP's schedule. But if there's serious interest, please commit (or re-commit) now -- and again, other topics are certainly welcome, and this is a good place to discuss them; or whoever wants to present can say so here, and we can discuss this on email.
Would you guys be interested in having a panel discussion on the "American" part of American Literature? We could look at oldies (Melville, Whitman, and of course kclou could take on FSFitzy), but mainly we'd look at authors like DFWallace and DeLillo and whomever else anyone wants to talk about, to see how writers write "America" into their works, our own experiences with similar attempts, and why this nationalist preoccupations in literature are good, bad, etc.
I read a Russell Banks essay a few years ago that decried our lack of a "defining" national literature (The Aeneid/Italy & Homer/Greece being the examples Banks gave, as I recall). My idea would be an exploration of his complaint -- NOT trying to define The Great American Novel so much as looking at how writers have focused on "America" in their works and the effects/ineffects of this.
7 comments:
I think Whitman would be a place to start w/ this topic, but alas, 'tis mere poesy...
I'm totally still in -- my talk in D.C. went really well, and I got a cool pen as a gift.
Hopefully, this will work, and we can go load up on Tex Mex.
I am still in. I'd like to talk about noir and Raymond Chandler in particular, since I think he presents a particular vision of America, even if it isn't as overt as, say, DeLillo's.
Rob said no, but Hugh is interested -- so that gives us five.
And what about those pesky poets? How come they don't want in (Nate)? Is it because they are "Like the virginial gopher in her iron trap/craptastically lame"?
Poets aren't invited for a few reasons: first, they say things like "tis mere poesy," ignore the fact that the panel isn't a discussion of historical American literature, and also somehow lose in fantasy baseball to teams named Team Suckass. (Actually, the real reason is that AWP gets 4x as many poetry panel submissions as fiction ones, so doing fiction greatly increases our chance of acceptance.)
Chandler sounds awesome; this whole idea is sounding fun. Maybe someone would want to talk about 'western' american lit (hi, cormac). I think I'll email everyone later this week, if that's okay, so we can stop pimping earth goat. That's SER, El Gordo, and kev, are you still interested? -- and ElG, you can add Hugh's email address to that discussion (iwp hugh f, I assume?). We can sketch an outline of our 'positions,' compile bios, and try to submit this thing by next week or so.
One spot still open! Most are welcome to join!
ach! mine ego so bruised!
i fall upon the roses of life, etc...
just got back from boston, where i went to one of the coolest events of my life, the red sox ring ceremony. i've been on the outs for this director madness. congrats to sam!
i'm definitely in for awp austin. i want to talk about fitzgerald, specifically the way he writes class into the american novel. i agree that we should continue this over email.
nate, your ego bruises easily.
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