May 21 – 24, the English Department hosted the 17th Annual Conference of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR). For four days, over 250 participants from all over the U.S. Canada and Europe gathered at the Washington Duke Inn. The theme of this year’s conference was Romanticism and Modernity, and many scholars presented work engaged in furthering our understanding of the connections and discontinuities between this relatively short period and the larger cultural formations of European Modernity.

Prof. Thomas Pfau and Prof. Robert Mitchell confronted the mathematically sublime task of organizing such a large conference with inexhaustible energy. By all accounts, the conference was a great success. The organizers had the help of a few resourceful graduate students who found the time to put in many hours of work. Among the most essential were Lindsey Andrews and Nathan Hensley from the English Department and Lisa Klarr and Abraham Geil from the Department of Literature.

- Kevin Modestino

Read the article from This Month at Duke.

conference website

NASSR

On Dec. 9th, Special guest Richard Brodhead guest-starred in a dramatic reading from Paradise Lost, joining Dean Gregson Davis and Professors Sarah Beckwith and Reynolds Price as the English Department wound up the end of semester festivities with a celebration in honor of the 400th birthday of John Milton.

Dean Davis took the role of narrator, Prof. Beckwith was Beelzebub, and President Brodhead delighted us all by taking the part of Satan.

Price opened with a brief commentary, saying, “This is ominously described as a talk. Well, I timed it this morning for the sake of your nerves, and the talk lasts six minutes, so fear not.”

Price has been studying and teaching Milton since the 1950’s. “At times I feel my relations with his work have lasted as long as he has endured among us, and he was born (as we just learned) 400 years ago today, on December the 9th, 1608.

“What has rewarded me so continuously? When I first encountered him I was captured by the outright love of beautiful language, which drove him far more than meaning or moral intention. My meeting with Milton…was of a different order of power, one that’s never relented. Such power is inexplicable, as is all beauty: from the smallest flower to the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, the giant pillars of Durham Cathedral in England, or Milton’s language and structure, from his first great poem on the morning of Christ’s nativity, to the late sonnet on the wife who, owning to his blindness, he never saw, and the overwhelming 10,000 lines of Paradise Lost. Yet so important has he been to the core of my happiness (and finally my survival of paraplegia at the age of 52), that I’ve struggled to convey the mystery of his poetry to as many Duke students as I can reach – and it’s a huge joy to see this room largely filled with you.

“Obviously my feeling for Milton’s work has evolved in those five decades, and that evolution has changed my teaching of his poems. …In recent years I’ve found my own answer to the long unsolved question of the identity of Milton’s hero in the poem. Is it Satan, as so many believe, Adam, or the son of God himself? Surely, though, we gradually learn that the hero of the poem is Eve.

“I’ve long felt that most women are better creatures than men. Milton is sometimes thought of as being a misogynist, but the conclusion of his epic profoundly denies that charge, and after a history of 400 years Milton is more alive than ever. Male or female, if you missed him in college it’s by no means too late to add his genius to the depths of your mind. Since his power as a moral teacher is a great as his beauty, you may well be a better creature once you’ve read the last line.”

As with the Rackett performance the week before, we were thrilled to see a very mixed audience of students, faculty, administrators, alumni and other friends join to hear the magic of Milton’s words brought to life. And the readers were clearly having as much fun as the audience! A recording of this memorable event is available free through Duke Today and iTunes U. (We hope you’ll all enjoy it!)

Milton’s own mom would have been impressed by the birthday cake, made to look like a gigantic book. During the reception, fascinated groups of guests were toured through the Rare Book collection, especially enjoying a highlighted display of beautiful first editions of Milton’s works. At the end of the semester and the end of the event we found we still felt sufficient to stand, but were very glad to be free to fall into the library’s lounge chairs.

Happy Birthday John Milton – many more!

The English Department and Duke University celebrated Reynolds Price in February 2008.
A series of events around the theme “A Long and Happy Life” brought students, alumni, scholars, writers, friends and family together for three days at Duke. Highlights included talks from notable distinguished scholars and writers reflecting on Price’s life and work, a new documentary film about his teaching career, a reading by Toni Morrison, a staged reading of one of Price’s plays (with actress Annabeth Gish), and an interview with Charlie Rose. In connection with the event, Jubilee guests Richard Ford and Josephine Humphries held masterclasses for English students, and Perkins Library constructed a stunning display about Price’s literary career thus far.

Recordings of the events are freely available through Itunes U.
If you’ve not yet tried this resource, this is an opportunity not to be missed. Browse for the event on the ITunes site or go directly to the recordings of Jubilee events at Duke’s Alumnni site.

2007-2008 Paradigms of Knowledge Seminar
A Possible World: In a political scene saturated by the word “hope,” J. Jack Halberstam would never simply admit to being a “utopian” scholar. “Maybe we’re more anti-anti-utopian,” Halberstam said of the ongoing collaborative project on queer utopias which includes Halberstam’s work with Duke PhD Jose Munoz and which was also the topic of a graduate seminar convened by Halberstam at Duke during a series of campus visits throughout the 2007-2008 academic year.

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Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky was a guest at Duke in October 2007. His public reading, held at the Doris Duke Center in Duke Gardens, brought in a packed audience from Duke and the Durham community. In addition, Pinksy held a number of smaller, more intimate conversations with groups of students, as here, in the Rare Book Room at Perkins Library.

You can read more about his visit here, and you can hear his talk at the the Center for Documentary Studies here.

Excerpts from the Archive’s interview with Pinksky:

ARCHIVE: What is the state of poetry in America?

There is no singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence.