Editor’s Introduction: Thoughts about the CEA Conference in Savannah: April 4–6, 2013

Sa-van-nah. Even the sound of the word is a bit magical. And mystical, if you’re a fan of John Berendt. The forty-fourth annual College English Association Conference convened in this southern port, and the city did not disappoint. For three days, from April 4th through the 6th, members examined the theme of “Nature” from every conceivable angle. That scrutiny was only appropriate, for Savannah is one place where nature’s beauty is on full display, from the city’s majestic oak trees to its expansive historic district dotted with nearly two dozen small squares. It is a city to stroll, whether along the downtown harbor or around the perimeter of Forsyth Park.

Against the ambling pace of the city was the hum that accompanies the first day of any conference: the bustle of registration, the ritual of reunion, the shuffling of pages as we marked our programs and planned our days. To those of us who have been members of CEA for decades, the charm of the conference, the lure that keeps us coming back, is the variety, not just of panels and papers—the 2013 program listed close to 150 panels on 47 different topics—but of tangential events: the Women’s Connection Reception, the Diversity Luncheon, and the Peace Breakfast. CEA members dash to their individual board or business or affiliate meetings, only to reconvene in the ballroom for the two events that close day one, the Plenary Session and the President’s Reception. This year’s Plenary Speaker, Australian filmmaker Ian Dixon, first came to CEA as a panel presenter. He returned to share his important work on American actor and filmmaker John Cassavetes (a version of his talk appears in this issue, and a multimodal element will appear in our sister online publication, The CEA Forum). The President’s Reception, hosted by departing CEA President Scott Borders, resoundingly fulfilled its mandate: a congenial hour to greet old friends and meet new ones over cocktails and small bites.

In addition to Ian’s multimodal plenary talk, in these pages, readers can enjoy the words of the conference’s other featured speaker, Georgia Poet Laureate David Bottoms. In his talk at the All-Conference Luncheon, a coda to our three days in Savannah, not only did David offer his vision of what it means to be a poet, but he also shared some priceless and personal recollections of his friendship with fellow Georgian, James Dickey. In between these two engaging presentations, the conference offered its usual diversity of speakers and sessions, and we offer some highlights here.

One way or the other, the love of all things literary is, of course, a primary part of the CEA’s spirit. Here we sample papers selected Best of Section by the panel moderators: Myron Yeager’s discussion of Alan Hollinghurst’s Booker prize-winning novel The Line of Beauty, Lisa Bouma Garvelink’s reading of Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark, and Edward Ardeneaux, IV’s examination of Ralph Ellison’s unfinished second novel. In addition, Katie Piper Greulich reflects on the pastoral in Louise Glück’s A Village Life, and Kartsen Piep contemplates the spectre of Orientalism in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford. Keith Huneycutt offers an eco-critical look at Harry Crews’s Naked in Garden Hills, and Grant Bain ponders M. Scott Momaday, Ernest Hemingway, and the nature of truth.

Complementing general literary studies are other disciplinary and special categories. Among the most loyal of CEA attendees are the members of the Thomas Merton Society, and 2013 was no exception. Their excellent work is well-represented by Paul M. Pearson’s study of Merton and the “Ox Mountain Parable.” Representing the ever-expanding selection of panels focusing on Composition and Rhetoric are Judy Palmer and Jan Thompson’s essay “First Year English: Welcoming Different Learners to the Table.” And, there are the prize-winners: Crystal Spears, who received the award for Outstanding Paper Presented by a Graduate Student for her paper “Removing the Masks of Lady Liberty: The Grotesque in the Literatures...