Eudora Welty Society

Eudora Welty Society Officers: Julia Eichelberger, President; Harriet Pollack, Vice President; Adrienne Akins Warfield, Treasurer.

The Eudora Welty Society sponsors panels for presentations at the Society for the Study of Southern Literature (SSSL), a conference held every other year. For the 2016 conference, held in Boston, the Welty Society sponsored two panels:

Welty, the North, and the South

Chair: Sarah Ford, Baylor University

1. 1. “Quentin Compson in Reverse: A Northerner’s South in ‘No Place for You, My Love,’” Laura Patterson, Seton Hill University

2. 2. “Welty on the Interstate: New Networks of North-South Literary Exchange,” Daniel Spoth, Eckerd College

3. 3. “Dematerializing the South in Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples,” Stephen M. Fuller, Middle Georgia State University

4. 4. “Welty, the South, the North, and the 1960s,” Harriet Pollack, Bucknell University

Honoring Noel Polk’s Legacy: New Directions in Archival, Bibliographic, and Textual Studies of Welty

Chair: Mae Miller Claxton, Western Carolina University

1. 1. “The Maid of Orléans at the Palace of Pleasure: Welty’s ‘The Purple Hat’ and The Emblematic Nature of Violence,” Rebecca L. Harrison, University of West Georgia

2. 2. “Archive Treasures: Welty’s 1985 Reading of As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, and Light in August,” Pearl Amelia McHaney, Georgia State University

3. 3. “Writer and Editor: Eudora Welty and Robert Giroux,” Patrick Samway, S. J., St. Joseph’s University

Several other papers related to Welty were also on the SSSL program:

“A Southern Fantasy Novel: Genre and Mode in Eudora Welty’s The Robber Bridegroom,” Skye Cervone, Florida Atlantic University

“Ron Rash and Eudora Welty: Walking the Same Worn Path,” Mae Miller Claxton, Western Carolina University

“Refusing Containment: German Reception of Salome and Eudora Welty’s The Robber Bridegroom,” Susan Wood, University of Mississippi

“An Economics of Apathy: Memory, History, and Myth in Delta Wedding,” Jill Fennell, University of Tennessee

During SSSL, the Welty Society sponsored an open lunch meeting at which members and others interested in Welty studies were able to network and socialize.

The Eudora Welty Society’s annual business meeting is held at the American Literature Association. The Society also organized two panels for the 2016 meeting in San Francisco in May.

Eudora Welty and Modernism

Chair: Julia Eichelberger, College of Charleston

1. 1. “Discovering Welty’s First Novel and the Origins of Her Signature Modernism,” Harriet Pollack, Bucknell University

2. 2. “Covert Relation: Eudora Welty’s Indebtedness to Henry James,” Li Cui, Renmin University

3. 3. “Losing Battles as Modernist Epic,” Stephen Fuller, Middle Georgia State College

4. 4. “The Modernist Miraculous: Teaching Welty in the Hong Kong Classroom,” Stuart Christie, Hong Kong Baptist University

Welty and Multimedia

Chair: Harriet Pollack, Bucknell University

1. 1. “Eudora Welty as Photography Critic of Kertész, Cartier-Bresson, Riefenstahl, and Eggleston,” Géraldine Chouard, University Paris-Dauphine

2. 2. “Now Playing at the Bijou: Welty, Virgie, and Divas of the Silent Screen,” Debra Dobkins, Brenau University

3. 3. “Eudora Welty in the Era of Social Media: Must the Novelist Tweet?,” Jacob Agner, University of Mississippi

4. 4. “1930s and 40s Radio and Recordings in Welty’s Letters and Fiction,” Julia Eichelberger, College of Charleston

The Phoenix Award for outstanding contributions to Eudora Welty Scholarship was presented to Julia Eichelberger.