Call for Contributions: American Threads: Forms and Reform, North and South, Université Montpellier III (EA 741), France

Thematic and formal connections, or “threads”, run through American literature. Some have been acknowledged by the writers themselves, others have been identified by academia. The aim of this conference is to show that the link between a nineteenth-century novelist, Harriet Beecher-Stowe (1811-1896), and a twentieth-century, poet John Beecher (1904-1980), is not merely genealogical. The theme “forms and reform” is an invitation to trace new continuities or overlaps beyond generic and chronological boundaries, and to examine these authors’ problematic inclusion in–or exclusion from–the canon in a new light.

In spite of the publication in 1980 of John Beecher’s Collected Poems, his work was neglected for many years. But One More River To Cross, a new “Selected Poems” edited by Steven Ford Brown and brought out by NewSouth Books in 2003, has made available again for reappraisal the work of one in turn dismissed as no poet at all or celebrated as “an American hero.” As for Harriet Beecher Stowe, the need to reread Uncle Tom’s Cabin seems particularly acute in the wake of three recent publications (Gregg Crane’s The Cambridge Introduction to The Nineteenth-Century Novel [2007], Sarah Robbins’s The Cambridge Introduction to Harriet Beecher Stowe [2007] and The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Hollis Robbins [2007].) Both authors therefore bear some relevance to the present.

Among the features common to both writers:

- their obvious concern for slaves in the case of Harriet Beecher Stowe and for workingmen, particularly African-Americans, in the case of John Beecher. Such priorities account for an inclination to preach, common to both authors. To various degrees, their works qualify as protest literature but are also informed by religion. Another tension worthy of exploration is that between sentiment and politics. Are these balancing acts successful? What is the political and religious relevance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin to today’s America? How religious do John Beecher’s politics sound to those who call themselves the Progressives of the 21st century? Should ‘the Beechers’ be considered as ultimately engineering social stability rather than radical reform? Surely they were not Anti-moderns in Antoine Compagnon’s understanding of the term—or were they?

- an apparent disinterest in formal innovation or just a taste for well-tried literary forms. But was it really the case, or did they simply choose to take their pick among available middle-of-the-road contemporary forms as their priorities lay elsewhere? Besides, is preaching out of bounds in literature? Where exactly does the border run between rhetoric and literature? Can the preaching, progressive thread(s) in John Beecher’s and Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s writings be tied to other significant works of American literature?

- their being a part of the Southern heritage for different reasons, although their roots lay in the North. How does John Beecher’s poetry tie into the some-say-non-existent Southern poetry tradition? What do Southern Studies have to say about the evolution of the assessment of Beecher-Stowe’s work? How do both writers’ attempts at writing the Southern idiom look and sound today?
The purpose of this conference is to provide the opportunity for a (re-)assessment of one of these two writers or of their possible connection. Priority will be given to papers showing an interest in bringing out continuities in American literature.

This project, initially conceived as a call for papers, has become a call for contributions for two reasons. Due to budget cuts, the recent academic context has been rather unfavourable. However, we are very happy to announce that we have found a possible publisher (a scholarly publisher, based in the UK) who has offered to examine our book proposal.

-articles should be approximately between 7,000 and 15,000 words in length (style sheet: MLA)

-In order to make sure that the collection of articles will be a coherent and self-sufficient volume, as the published has required, contributors are encouraged to address some of the key issues mentioned above, specifically: the canon, political commitment, genre, rhetorical and stylistic strategies, interdisciplinary issues, the literary tradition, etc.

Proposals of about 300 words to be sent to Guillaume Tanguy and Vincent Dussol by January 30th 2009, along with a short biographical note.