The Philip Roth Society

Roth@80 CFP

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:27:26 +0000

The Philip Roth Society proudly announces a call for papers for Roth@80, a conference event organized, in conjunction with the Newark Preservation & Landmark Committee, to mark the 80th birthday of Philip Roth. The conference will take place March 18-19, 2013, at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, New Jersey.

Individuals are encouraged to submit abstract proposals that cover the entire range of Philip Roth’s writings, from his earliest novels and stories to his more recent Nemeses Tetralogy. A diversity of topics and critical perspectives is welcome. Individual proposals will be considered along with ready-made panels. The Roth Society welcomes proposals for:

• Scholarly presentations that provide fresh, critical approaches to Roth’s fiction

• Roundtable discussions that focus on a single theme, or a particular text

• Creative or performance pieces that are based on Roth’s work

There will also be a guided tour of “Roth’s Newark,” conducted by the Newark Preservation & Landmark Committee, as well as a photography exhibit at the Newark Public Library.

In addition to formal presentations, tour, and exhibits, the conference will include a reception on March 19 at the Newark Museum with Jonathan Lethem, Claduia Roth Pierpont, Hermione Lee, and Philip Roth himself.

Proposals of no more than 250 words are invited for 20-minute papers on any aspect of Roth’s work. Please send your abstracts by email to the Roth Society Program Chair, David Gooblar, at GooblarPRS@gmail.com. Please include your professional affiliation or association status, along with full contact details. All presenters selected for the conference must be, or must become, members of the Philip Roth Society.

Deadline for proposals is September 1, 2012.

For more detailed information on the Roth@80 conference, including hotel accommodations, maps, and travel options, visit the conference website at http://rothsociety.org/society/roth80/.

Philip Roth Society Activity at the 2012 ALA Conference

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:15:32 +0000

The Philip Roth Society will be sponsoring both a panel and a roundtable discussion at the 23rd annual American Literature Association Conference. This year, the conference will take place at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in the Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA, May 24-27.

The events are as follows:

Saturday, May 26, 2012 11:10 am – 12:30 pm

Session 17-J Philip Roth’s Influences (Room: Pacific H)

Chair: Jane Statlander-Slote, Miami International University of Art and Design

1.“Roth and Nietzsche: Life as Literature,” Patrick Hayes, St. John’s College, Oxford

2.“Nathaning Nabokov: Rothian Resonance in Lolita’s Afterword,” Royden Jay Kadyschuk, Columbia University

3. “‘Letting Go’: Roth’s Nemesis and Melville’s White Whale,” James Duban, The University of North Texas 4. “The Roots of Bucky Cantor: Philip Roth Revisits Thomas Mann’s Myth of Illness,” Nicola von Bodman-Hensler, King’s College London

Saturday, May 26, 2012 2:10 – 3:30 pm

Session 19-K Letting Go Turns 50: A Roundtable Discussion (Room: Pacific H)

Moderator: David Brauner, University of Reading, UK

1.David Gooblar, Independent Scholar

2.Maggie McKinley, Marquette University

3.Aimee Pozorski, Central Connecticut State University

4.Mark Shechner, University at Buffalo

The Philip Roth Society will also be holding its annual business meeting at the Hyatt on Saturday, May 26, between the two sessions from 12:40 – 2:00 pm, in room Pacific B.

For more information on the ALA Conference, visit its website at http://www.americanliterature.org.

Election of Philip Roth Society Officers

admin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:06:54 +0000

The votes have been cast, and members of the Philip Roth Society have chosen their officers for the 2012-2015 term. Beginning in May, the officers of the Philip Roth Society will include:

President – Aimee Pozorski

Secretary/Treasurer – Chris Gonzalez

Newsletter Editor – Richard Sheehan

Program Chair – David Gooblar

Congratulations to all of these elected officers for the next three-year term!

Teaching Resources Page Updated

admin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:01:39 +0000

The “Teaching Resources” page on the Philip Roth Society website has recently been updated with syllabi from various instructors who have taught courses devoted to the novelist. For more information, visit the Society’s “Teaching Resources” site. And if you have documents, handouts, syllabi, or any form of digital material that you’ve used in the classroom, and you would like to share with others, please contact the webmaster.

Roth Attempts to Stop Bryan Zanisnik Performance

admin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:53:52 +0000

Last month the Roth Society news blog mentioned Bryan Zanisnik’s (at the time) upcoming performance involving the work of Philip Roth. But in early April, according to Artnet magazine, the novelist has attempted, through his lawyers, to stop Every Inch a Man, Zanisnik’s performance that involved him silently reading his work. For the complete story go to the Artnet website.

Teaching Resources on the Roth Society Website

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:28:00 +0000

The Philip Roth Society has enhanced its website by creating a page devoted to resources that can be used in the classroom. On the new Teaching Resources page of the Roth Society site, you will find a variety of handouts, syllabi, and other resources that have been used in the classroom when teaching Philip Roth’s novels and stories. They are provided by members of the Philip Roth Society, editorial board members of Philip Roth Studies, and friends of the society who have taught Roth’s books in the past. The Roth Society welcomes any contributions and encourages instructors to share their Roth-related teaching tools. We hope that this resource page will grow in the coming months, and you can see the material already contributed by visiting the Teaching Resources page at http://rothsociety.org/?page_id=433. If you have anything you’d like to share, or if you have any questions about this project, please contact the Roth Society webmaster.

Bryan Zanisnik: Every Inch a Man

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:26:00 +0000

Between March 30-May 6, 2012, the Abrons Arts Center (in Manhattan’s Lower East Side) will present Every Inch a Man, a five-week, site-specific performance and installation by Bryan Zanisnik in the Upper Main Gallery. From Thursday through Sunday each week (1-6 p.m.) Zanisnik will read Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel within a life-size Plexiglas container specially designed to fan baseball cards and outdated currency. Taking intermittent breaks to eat lunch with his parents, Bob and Carol Zanisnik, the artist will also tinker with an expansively cluttered installation of junk sourced from both Abrons storage spaces and his own childhood home; police costumes, hardware shelving, and cardboard share strange proximity with his childhood comic books, toys, baseball cards, and other icons of boyhood.

For more information about this performance, visit the Abrons Arts Center website.

Happy Birthday Philip Roth

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:35:29 +0000

Happy birthday to Philip Roth, who was born on this day in 1933. As members of the Roth Society know, Roth is American’s preeminent novelist and winner of almost every major literary award. Yet, even at 79, the writer continues to produce significant works and remains every bit as relevant today as he was with the publication of his first short story in 1954.

Roth in the Media

admin — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:45:03 +0000

Over the past week there have been two significant articles regarding Philip Roth. In the latest issue of The Newark Star-Ledger, Amy Ellis Nutt interviews Roth and discusses, among other things, next year’s Roth@80 conference sponsored by the Philip Roth Society. (We will provide more information about this event in the coming months.) And in the April issue of The Atlantic, novelist Joseph O’Neill reviews the latest Roth volume in the Library of America series, The American Trilogy, and focuses on the perils of reading Roth’s fiction as autobiography.

Nominations for Philip Roth Society Officers, 2012-2015

admin — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 20:02:35 +0000

It is time for the triennial election of officers for the Philip Roth Society. As per its constitution, every three years the society membership will elect individuals to four positions: president, secretary/treasurer, program director, and newsletter editor. These four elected members, along with the executive editor of Philip Roth Studies, make up the society’s Executive Council and serve as the major voting body of the organization. For a full description of the various officer positions, please see the Philip Roth Society constitution.

Nominations for the four elected positions are currently underway, and all members are strongly encouraged to nominate themselves or another member for one of the open offices. The nomination process will be open until midnight on Friday, March 30th. Please submit all nominations, along with any questions concerning the election, to the society’s outgoing secretary/treasurer, Jessica Rabin, at jgrabin@aacc.edu.

This is an important event for the organization, and we appreciate all members taking the time to participate. Again, the society encourage every member to send in her or his nominations by Friday, March 30th.