Editor's Notes

Prof. Sandra Gustafson will be directing a conference at the American Antiquarian Society under the sponsorship of the Program in the History of the Book on June 10–12, 2005, entitled Histories of Print, Manuscript, and Performance in America. To register, consult the AAS website: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/programs.htm

The second early Ibero- and Anglo-American summit will be held at Providence, R.I., on November 4–6, 2004. It is entitled "Beyond Colonial Studies: An Interamerican Encounter." According to conference cochairs Ralph Bauer and David Boruchoff, the intent of this conference and of the collection of essays to result from it is to advance an understanding of the colonial Americas that transcends the national, linguistic, cultural, and epistemological boundaries commonly found in academia today. In this, the conference seeks to build upon the dialogue initiated with the Summit of Early Ibero- and Anglo-Americanists in Tucson, Arizona, in May 2002. Whereas the latter sought to address the mutual ignorance of colonialists working in English, Spanish, and Portuguese through a review of key texts and problems in each of these languages, we will (1) broaden discussion by including scholars of the French and Dutch colonies, and (2) go beyond the side-by-side presentation of examples drawn from and conceptualized in terms of particular linguistic or national traditions in favor of more explicitly comparative analysis. There will be 12 plenary sessions, each focusing not on the usual topics of colonial studies (exploration, conquest, settlement, etc.) but on the consequence of the ways in which these activities are conceptualized, performed, or recorded. Each session will comprise three 20-minute talks, a formal response, and discussion. By this means, and through workshops on more specialized topics, we will explore what is common, different, and distinctly American in colonial American studies.

EAL editor David S. Shields is currently preparing the Library of America's volume on Early American Poetry. If readers have nominations for items to be included in the collection, please contact him. The collection will present English language versions of the most significant poems by every literate culture inhabiting North America and the West Indies prior to 1800.