Poe Studies Association Updates

From Philip Edward Phillips, PSA President

I would like to begin my term as President by extending my sincere appreciation to our outgoing officers—John Guesser (Kean University), President; and Elizabeth Sweeney (College of the Holy Cross), Immediate Past President and member of the Executive Committee—for their leadership and service to the Poe Studies Association and to Poe studies in general. The PSA is an active, vibrant organization, and we would not be where we are today were it not for the efforts of these two leaders and the others who have gone before us.

I am grateful to our returning officers—Paul Lewis (Boston College), Vice President; Amy Branam Armiento (Frostburg State University), Secretary; Carole Shaffer-Koros (Kean University, emerita), Treasurer; John Gruesser, Immediate Past President and member of the Executive Committee; and Barbara Cantalupo (Penn State), Editor of the Edgar Allan Poe Review—for their ongoing commitment to the PSA. I am especially pleased to welcome William E. Engel (Sewanee: The University of the South) and Travis Montgomery (Fort Hayes State University) as members-at-large of the PSA Executive Committee. Finally, I would like to thank Ben Fisher and Dennis Eddings, past presidents of the PSA, for serving on the Nominating Committee, and Cynthia Popper for continuing to maintain the PSA Facebook page.

This year marks the 205th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. Already, Poe’s life, works, and influence have been celebrated in cities throughout the United States and the world—from Boston, the city of his birth, to places like Bucharest, where his works continue to be read and appreciated. The Poe Studies Association sponsored two sessions—“Hoaxing Poe” and “Emotion, Embodiment, and Reading in Poe and Dickinson”—at the Modern Language Association’s Annual Meeting in Chicago. In May, the PSA will sponsor two sessions—“Lyrical Eruptions in Poe’s Prose: ‘The Haunted Palace’ 175 Years Later” and “Teaching Poe’s Poetry”—at the American Literature Association Conference in Washington, D.C. I encourage all members to participate in the various activities of the PSA, to stay active on the PSA Listserv, and to submit articles and other Poe-related items of interest to the journal.

Looking ahead, the Fourth International Edgar Allan Poe Conference, cochaired by Barbara Cantalupo and Richard Kopley, will be held in New York City at the Roosevelt Hotel on E. 45th Street near Madison Avenue from Thursday, February 26, to Sunday, March 1, 2015. Please see the PSA website for updates. The deadline for paper abstracts is June 1, 2014, so please remember to mark your calendars and send your proposals to Richard Kopley at rxk3@psu.edu.

I am truly honored to serve as president of the Poe Studies Association. I thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward to our continuing efforts to promote Poe studies worldwide.

From Paul Lewis, PSA Vice President

At MLA 2014 in Chicago, we sponsored a panel, “Hoaxing Poe” and cosponsored another, “Emotion, Embodiment, and Reading in Poe and Dickinson,” with the Emily Dickinson International Society. Here in Boston, the long, vexed history of Poe’s relation to the city where he was born is about to take a very positive turn with the installation of a permanent work of art between May and October of this year. The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, a 501(c)(3) corporation that I chair, has raised most of the funds needed to install Stefanie Rocknak’s Poe Returning to Boston in Edgar Allan Poe Square: the intersection of Boylston and Charles Street South, across from the Common and a short stroll from 62 Carver Street, now 62 Charles Street South, where Eliza and David Poe were living around the time their famous son was born. The finished, full-size, pre-bronze statue is at a foundry in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and the Poe Boston Foundation is in its final fund-raising phase. To learn more about the project or make a donation, visit http://www.bostonpoe.org/.

From William Engel, Member-at-Large

Two panels are planned for the Twenty-Fifth Annual American Literature Association Conference in Washington, D.C. (May 22–25, 2014): “Teaching...