Honorary Membership Citations

Barbara Cantalupo Named Honorary Member of the Poe Studies Association

Philip Edward Phillips

Honorary Membership is the highest award bestowed by the Poe Studies Association on individual members for significant and sustained contributions to the field of Poe studies and service to the association. It is difficult to imagine someone who has contributed more to the advancement of Poe scholarship worldwide or to the long-term success of the Poe Studies Association than Professor Barbara Cantalupo. It is therefore a great honor for me as PSA president to have presented this award to her at the 2015 Fourth International Edgar Allan Poe Conference, the second such international conference she has cochaired for our organization.

Professor Cantalupo’s scholarly contributions in the field of Poe studies include essays on topics ranging from Poe’s prose-poem Eureka to his engagement with nineteenth-century painting in books and refereed journals; a series of published interviews with no fewer than eighteen prominent Poe scholars, most of which appeared in the Edgar Allan Poe Review; an edited collection of essays, Poe’s Pervasive Influence (2012); and, most recently, a monograph, Poe and the Visual Arts (2014).

Fig 1.

Barbara Cantalupo

Professor Cantalupo is best known to many of us for her important contributions as an editor. Having served as editorial assistant and editor of the PSA Newsletter, Professor Cantalupo was the founding editor of the Edgar Allan Poe Review (2000–2004) and returned in 2007 to serve as editor, a position she still holds. In 2008 Professor Cantalupo became the editor of Lehigh University Press’s “Perspectives on Edgar Allan Poe” series. She also served as the Vice-President of the Poe Studies Association (2005–7) and remains active in all aspects of the Poe Studies Association, including serving as the webmaster for the PSA Listserv.

People who know her well think readily of her love of her family, her pleasure in her work, her ready responses to beauty, her terrific energy, and her great laugh.

For her many accomplishments, named and unnamed, the PSA Executive Committee and PSA membership recognize Professor Barbara Cantalupo as a 2014 Honorary Member of the Poe Studies Association.

Alexander Hammond Named Honorary Member of the Poe Studies Association

Scott Peeples

We are pleased to honor the many and ongoing contributions of Professor Alexander Hammond to Poe studies.

Professor Hammond’s scholarship includes a series of influential articles on The Tales of the Folio Club, which brought a new focus to the study of Poe’s early fiction. The subjects of his other articles on Poe have ranged from the relationship between physical hunger and the literary marketplace, geometry in “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and Poe’s response to Walter Scott. But to many of us, Professor Hammond is best known as a longtime editor of the journal Poe Studies. He began as coeditor with G. R. Thompson at Washington State University in 1976, served as editor or coeditor until his retirement from WSU in 2009, and continues to support the journal as consulting editor.

Fig 2.

Alexander Hammond

The culture and tone of Poe Studies have consistently reflected his commitment, in equal measure, to the human side of scholarly relation and the demands of intellectual integrity. The scholars who have benefited from his willingness to spend hours consulting sources and writing generously detailed letters of advice about their submissions, if gathered together, would make a crowd much larger than he is likely to credit. He is a much-loved colleague and mentor.

For these exceptional contributions to the study of Poe, we recognize Professor Hammond with honorary membership in the Poe Studies Association.