Fourteenth Biennial Conference of the Constance Fenimore Woolson Society
“Woolson and Her Contemporaries”
Glidden House
Cleveland, Ohio
Date: April 7-9, 2022
In conjunction with the Cleveland Arts Prize and the city’s year-long celebration of “Our Past Masters,” including Woolson, we invite papers on any topic related to Woolson’s life and work, as well as the life and work of her contemporaries.
In Cleveland, those might include William Dean Howells, John Hay, Martha Wolfenstein, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Charles Chesnutt. Because the city’s celebration will extend to 60 eminent artists who won national fame before there was a Cleveland Arts Prize, we are also casting a wide net this year, with a particular interest in other postbellum writers who corresponded with Woolson, including Edmund Clarence Stedman, Paul Hamilton Hayne, Mary Mapes Dodge, Susan Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, Alice James, and Edward Everett Hale.
Our keynote speaker is Anne Boyd Rioux, author of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist and soon to deliver the Sadar Lecture on Woolson at Case Western Reserve University. Special events may include Dawn Sonntag’s chamber opera “Miss Grief” and a trip to Zoar, once an historic community of German Separatists who settled near Cleveland in 1817.
As always, Woolson Society conferences are open to all, and membership in the society is not a requirement for attendance. Graduate student proposals are also encouraged.
Send a proposal (about 250 words) and a brief CV or bio to Dr. Mischa Renfroe (mischa.renfroe@mtsu.edu).
Proposals Due: January 7, 2022
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