Calls for papers
Henry James Society
8th International Conference, Trieste, Italy, 4-6 July 2019
The Sound of James: The Aural Dimension in Henry James’s Work
While James’s hyper-active eye, his keen sensitivity to the visual, and abundant literary use of painting, have been the subject of extensive and probing scholarship, his attention to sound, and indeed his general relationship with it, have been only sporadically examined. And yet even a cursory glance at James’s long career reveals his continuing alertness and discriminating responsiveness to auditory experience. From his early tales of the 1860s to his three massive novels of the first decade of the twentieth century, from his first travel pieces to The American Scene and Italian Hours, and throughout his criticism, autobiographies, notebooks, correspondence and unfinished work, James recorded the constantly changing soundscapes of the United States and Europe and left significant evidence of his interest in, and commitment to, the aural dimension of his writing. No less than his eye, James’s ear captured the minutest nuances of social, cultural, local and national difference and transformation, together with the impact of technology, and the role of music as an element of setting or a delineator of character.
The Henry James Society invites papers and complete panel proposals on the many facets of James’s relationship with sound. Possible topics include but are not limited to:
The new sounds of modernity and technology
Noise
The sounds of multi-ethnic America
The question of speech (American vs British)
Speech as a marker of class
Gender-based speech
The distinctive voice of James's narrators
Sound effects in James's writing
The role of listening or hearing
The sonics of James's style
Silences in James's writing
James’s use of foreign words and/or rendering of foreign languages and accents in English
Pronunciation and diction
The sound of James in translation
Music in James and/or James set to music
The effect of dictation on James’s writing
The sound of James in stage, radio, film, and television adaptations
Jamesian echoes during his lifetime and after
Please send an abstract (250 words) and a short biographpy (one paragraph) as well as panel proposals to Leonardo Buonomo, conference director (buonomo@units.it), Giulia Iannuzzi (giannuzzi@units.it), and Greg Zacharias (gwzach@creighton.edu) by December 15, 2018.
8th International Conference, Trieste, Italy, 4-6 July 2019
The Sound of James: The Aural Dimension in Henry James’s Work
While James’s hyper-active eye, his keen sensitivity to the visual, and abundant literary use of painting, have been the subject of extensive and probing scholarship, his attention to sound, and indeed his general relationship with it, have been only sporadically examined. And yet even a cursory glance at James’s long career reveals his continuing alertness and discriminating responsiveness to auditory experience. From his early tales of the 1860s to his three massive novels of the first decade of the twentieth century, from his first travel pieces to The American Scene and Italian Hours, and throughout his criticism, autobiographies, notebooks, correspondence and unfinished work, James recorded the constantly changing soundscapes of the United States and Europe and left significant evidence of his interest in, and commitment to, the aural dimension of his writing. No less than his eye, James’s ear captured the minutest nuances of social, cultural, local and national difference and transformation, together with the impact of technology, and the role of music as an element of setting or a delineator of character.
The Henry James Society invites papers and complete panel proposals on the many facets of James’s relationship with sound. Possible topics include but are not limited to:
The new sounds of modernity and technology
Noise
The sounds of multi-ethnic America
The question of speech (American vs British)
Speech as a marker of class
Gender-based speech
The distinctive voice of James's narrators
Sound effects in James's writing
The role of listening or hearing
The sonics of James's style
Silences in James's writing
James’s use of foreign words and/or rendering of foreign languages and accents in English
Pronunciation and diction
The sound of James in translation
Music in James and/or James set to music
The effect of dictation on James’s writing
The sound of James in stage, radio, film, and television adaptations
Jamesian echoes during his lifetime and after
Please send an abstract (250 words) and a short biographpy (one paragraph) as well as panel proposals to Leonardo Buonomo, conference director (buonomo@units.it), Giulia Iannuzzi (giannuzzi@units.it), and Greg Zacharias (gwzach@creighton.edu) by December 15, 2018.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Henry James Review
Henry James Review Forum issue
Emotion, Feeling, Sentiment in James: “Sorrow comes in great waves”
Henry James wrote to Grace Norton, his longtime friend:
Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, + though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot + we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes + we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; + it is blind, whereas we after a manner see. My dear Grace, you are passing through a darkness in which I myself in my ignorance see nothing but that you have been made wretchedly ill by it; but it is only a darkness it is[W2] not an end, or theend. Don’t think, don’t feel, any more than you can help, don’t conclude or decide—don’t do anything but wait. Everything will pass and serenity + acceptedmysteries + disillusionments, + the tenderness of a few good people, + new opportunities + ever so much of life, in a word, will remain. You will do all sorts of things yet, + I will help you. (28 July 1883)
In addition, and indirectly related to James’s letter to Grace Norton, R. P. Blackmur offered the following unconfirmed anecdote about Henry James, which Blackmur found “so true and just in spirit”:
Once, in the nineties, while James was staying in an English country house, the only child of a neighbor died of a sudden illness; and although James had quarreled with the neighbor and they had not been on speaking terms he announced to his host that he would attend the funeral of the little boy. His host argued that, in the small church in the small village, it would be conspicuously unseemly for him to go—the bereaved parents could only take it as an affront; but James was obstinate. When he returned, his host asked him how on earth he could have brought himself to go, and to sit, as he had, in the pew directly behind the mourners. James brushed all argument aside and, with that intensity in his eyes which made his face seem naked, stated firmly: “Where emotion is, there am I!”
Blackmur emphasizes the anecdote because it tells a “story of [James’s] struggle to realize art as emotion[W3] and to create it as art is the abiding story of Henry James, as near as we can come to the Figure in his Carpet.”
Thus the Henry James Review invites one-page proposals or short (10–12 pages) essays on any aspect of Emotion, Feelings, Sentiment in James, including but not confined to:
• Emotion
• Feelings
• Sentiment
• Affect
• Mourning
• Melancholy
• Enthusiasm
• Emotional intelligence
• Manipulation of emotion
• Reading and interpreting emotion
• Emotion and characterization
• Jamesian grammar of emotions
• The place of emotion in Jamesian narrative
• Feelings and emotions in James’s fiction, critical essays, autobiographical writing
• Feeling and form
• Memory and emotion
• Theorizing emotion in James
• Neurology and emotion, feelings, and/or sentiment
Contributions should be produced according to MLA style (7thedition) and sent electronically by March 1, 2019, to hjamesr@creighton.edu. Please identify your manuscript as an Emotion, Feelings, Sentiment Forum submission.
Henry James Review
Henry James Review Forum issue
Emotion, Feeling, Sentiment in James: “Sorrow comes in great waves”
Henry James wrote to Grace Norton, his longtime friend:
Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, + though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot + we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes + we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; + it is blind, whereas we after a manner see. My dear Grace, you are passing through a darkness in which I myself in my ignorance see nothing but that you have been made wretchedly ill by it; but it is only a darkness it is[W2] not an end, or theend. Don’t think, don’t feel, any more than you can help, don’t conclude or decide—don’t do anything but wait. Everything will pass and serenity + acceptedmysteries + disillusionments, + the tenderness of a few good people, + new opportunities + ever so much of life, in a word, will remain. You will do all sorts of things yet, + I will help you. (28 July 1883)
In addition, and indirectly related to James’s letter to Grace Norton, R. P. Blackmur offered the following unconfirmed anecdote about Henry James, which Blackmur found “so true and just in spirit”:
Once, in the nineties, while James was staying in an English country house, the only child of a neighbor died of a sudden illness; and although James had quarreled with the neighbor and they had not been on speaking terms he announced to his host that he would attend the funeral of the little boy. His host argued that, in the small church in the small village, it would be conspicuously unseemly for him to go—the bereaved parents could only take it as an affront; but James was obstinate. When he returned, his host asked him how on earth he could have brought himself to go, and to sit, as he had, in the pew directly behind the mourners. James brushed all argument aside and, with that intensity in his eyes which made his face seem naked, stated firmly: “Where emotion is, there am I!”
Blackmur emphasizes the anecdote because it tells a “story of [James’s] struggle to realize art as emotion[W3] and to create it as art is the abiding story of Henry James, as near as we can come to the Figure in his Carpet.”
Thus the Henry James Review invites one-page proposals or short (10–12 pages) essays on any aspect of Emotion, Feelings, Sentiment in James, including but not confined to:
• Emotion
• Feelings
• Sentiment
• Affect
• Mourning
• Melancholy
• Enthusiasm
• Emotional intelligence
• Manipulation of emotion
• Reading and interpreting emotion
• Emotion and characterization
• Jamesian grammar of emotions
• The place of emotion in Jamesian narrative
• Feelings and emotions in James’s fiction, critical essays, autobiographical writing
• Feeling and form
• Memory and emotion
• Theorizing emotion in James
• Neurology and emotion, feelings, and/or sentiment
Contributions should be produced according to MLA style (7thedition) and sent electronically by March 1, 2019, to hjamesr@creighton.edu. Please identify your manuscript as an Emotion, Feelings, Sentiment Forum submission.
Call for Papers
LEON EDEL PRIZE
The Leon Edel Prize is awarded annually for the best essay on Henry James by a beginning scholar. The prize carries with it an award of $150, and the prize-winning essay will be published in HJR.
The competition is open to applicants who have not held a full-time academic appointment for more than four years. Independent scholars and graduate students are encouraged to apply.
Essays should be 20-30 pages (including notes), original, and not under submission elsewhere or previously published. Please send the manuscript in Microsoft Word format.
Send electronic submissions to: hjamesr@creighton.edu
Author's name should not appear on the manuscript. Please identify essays as submissions for the Leon Edel Prize. The competition is limited to one submission per author.
A brief curriculum vitae should be included.
Decisions about regular publication are also made at the same time as the prize decision.
Deadline: November 1, 2018