Poe Studies Association Updates

From Paul Lewis, PSA President

I am writing this about a week before Poe’s 208th birthday, an event celebrated in cities around the country and the world. On that very day, January 19, fortuitous timing allowed the PSA to launch our new website. If you haven’t visited the site yet, you can do so now by going to https://www.poestudiesassociation.org/. In addition to the new domain name, the updated site adjusts when the screen changes shape, allowing easy viewing on all devices. As always, the site includes essential information about the organization’s history, publications, awards, membership, and bylaws.

Also happening now—but closing before this issue of the Review is printed—is a Poe exhibition at the George Peabody Library, The Enigmatic Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore and Beyond: Selections from the Susan Jaffe Tane Collection. Organized around the cities where Poe lived and superbly curated by Gabrielle Dean, the exhibition tells the story of Poe’s itinerant career with clarity and visual appeal. If you missed it, you’ll find it well represented in the exhibition volume, Edgar Allan Poe in 20 Objects: From the Susan Jaffe Tane Collection, edited by Gabrielle Dean and Richard Kopley and published by the Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University Press.

From the city of Poe’s birth, I send best wishes and look forward to seeing many of you at the American Literature Association conference here in May.

From Amy Branam Armiento, PSA Vice President

The 2018 MLA International Convention will take place in New York City, January 4–7. The PSA will host two sessions, one of these in conjunction with the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society, “Bodies in Poe and Hawthorne.” Presentations will focus on the human body in Poe or Hawthorne including gendered or racialized treatments, transformations (including aging and illness), (dis)ability, and physical labor. The PSA session, “Poe’s Philadelphia Stories,” will concern “The Black Cat,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Gold-Bug,” and “The Masque of the Red Death.”

On Saturday, January 7, 2017, the PSA-sponsored panel, “Poe and Antebellum Writers,” took place at the MLA International Convention held in Philadelphia. Sarah Schuetze, Emron Esplin, and Edward Whitley presented to a full room of conference participants. At the end of the panel presentations, Barbara Cantalupo provided astute connections to “weave” the papers together.

Fig. 1.

L–R: Barbara Cantalupo, Emron Esplin, Edward Whitley, Amy Branam Armiento, Sarah Schuetze.

From Carole Shaffer-Koros, PSA Treasurer

As of January 11, 2017, the Association has 197 members. The current balance in our checking account is $20,559.87, including $1,250.00 received for the newly established Lasley Dameron award. Additionally, we have two CDs in the amount of $5,024.05 and $1,066.32. The current cumulative value of our treasury is $26,650.24. We have also received a total of $4,000.00 in a separate Kyoto Conference account thanks to the generosity of Boston College and Brigham Young University. A Merrill Lynch account is being established to accept donations in the form of stocks and bonds.

From Emron Esplin, PSA Member-at-Large

At the upcoming ALA Conference in Boston (May 25–28, 2017), Emron Esplin and Margarida Vale de Gato organized the following panel, “Poe and Anthologies.”

Chairs: Emron Esplin, Brigham Young University; and Margarida Vale de Gato, Centro de Estudos Comparatistas

1. 1. “(Dis)unity of Affect: Poe Collecting People in The Literati of New York City”

   Jana L. Argersinger, Washington State University

2. 2. “Editing Poe in the Twentieth Century: The Contributions of Mabbott, Pollin, Quinn, and Thompson”

   Travis Montgomery, Oklahoma Christian University

3. 3. “Edgar Allan Poe and the Classification, Collection, and Anthologizing of Detective Fiction”

   John Gruesser, Kean University

4. 4. “Anthologies: A Study of the First Spanish Illustrated Poe Anthology”

   Margarita Rigal-Aragón and Fernando González-Moreno, Universidad Castilla–La Mancha

From Cristina Pérez, Member-at-Large

At the ALA Conference in May 2017, the following PSA panel, “Innovative Approaches to Teaching Poe,” will be presented.

Chair: Cristina Pérez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid / Harvard University

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