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digest 1998-11-12 #001.txt
Wednesday
From: "Society for Literature & Science"
Daily SLS Email Digest
-> text of next Decodings, forthcoming Dec 1998
by Carol Colatrella
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Date: 11 Nov 1998 12:03:36 -0800
From: Carol Colatrella
Subject: text of next Decodings, forthcoming Dec 1998
CALL FOR PAPERS
"Historicizing Literature, Science, and the Arts"
Society for Literature and Science
1999 Conference
October 7-10, 1999
Norman, Oklahoma
Sponsor: University of Oklahoma, assisted by University of Texas at
Dallas
Conference Coordinator: Ronald Schleifer
Conference Committee: Peter Barker and Pam Gossin
Direct Abstracts/Panel Proposals by February 1, 1999 to:
Ronald Schleifer, Dept. of English, Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman OK
73019
email submissions preferred: schleifer@ou.edu OR
psgossin@utdallas.edu
Summary of Executive Board/Business Meetings, 11/6/98 and 11/7/98
Presidential Report
Susan Squier thanked Jim Paxson for putting on such a wonderful
conference. She congratulated former president Sidney Perkowitz for
his contributions to the society and noted other changes in officers
and their terms. Susan will serve as President until fall 2000, when
Hugh Crawford, current 1st VP will become President, and Jay Labinger,
recently elected as 2nd VP will become 1st VP. Richard Nash was
recently elected member-at-large, replacing the outgoing Linda
Henderson, whose efforts in bringing artists and art critics into the
SLS community were lauded. Laura Dassow Walls is the second
member-at-large, entering the second year of her term. Susan reported
that although negotiations had occasionally been turbulent, the
Executive Board had resolved the question of the society's appropriate
level of support for the journal Configurations.
Financial Report
Carol Colatrella thanked members for replying to the newsletter
survey, noted that the printed newsletter will be retained as many
members requested, and delivered the past year's financial report:
Balance, on hand 9/30/97: Wachovia Bank, Atlanta
$14,427.00
Fleet Bank, Worcester 3,219.00
$17,646.00
Income: Dues (share from Hopkins UP)
7,699.00
Configurations dividend 5409.00
Royalties from U Michigan P 203.17
Donations--Schachterle Prize 250.00
--Bruns Prize 250.00
Transfer from Pittsburgh account 535.74
TOTAL INCOME 14,346.91
Expenses: Pittburgh conference (SLS97)--hotel subsidy
5,000.00
--computer assistant 500.00
--site assistant 180.00
--speakers' fees/travel 2,692.97
conference subtotal 8,372.97
Configurations--Georgia Tech subsidy 4,300.00
--Bibliographical assistant 695.00
Configurations subtotal 4,995.00
Decodings--printing 2,011.20
--postage 975.14
Decodings subtotal 2986.34
Placques for service 191.80
Other postage 49.00
Copying 38.00
Tax consultant, Atlanta 280.00
Tax filing fee, Massachusetts 35.00
Prizes--Schachterle Essay 250.00
--Bruns Essay 250.00
TOTAL EXPENSES 17,448.11
Balance, on hand 9/30/98: Wachovia Bank, Atlanta
11,036.38
Fleet Bank, Worcester 3,441.00
14,477.38
1998 Conference Report
Jim Paxson thanked the SLS98 coordinators, including Kate Ziemak of
the University of Florida's conference division; English department
colleagues Pamela Gilbert and Stephanie Smith, and Florida State's
Linda Saladin, who worked on the program, and graduate students Ron
Broglio, Bill Ruegg, Stephanie Tripp, Angela Bacsik, and Tom Cohen,
whose many contributions were noted.
Report on University of Michigan Press series
Katherine Hayles credited Stephanie Smith for her continuing
contributions as co-editor of the University of Michigan Press/SLS
series, noting that there are currently eleven volumes in print and
several more in the pipeline.
Report on Configurations
Jim Bono thanked his co-editors, Hugh Crawford and Paula Findlen, for
their successful work in soliciting and reviewing manuscripts. Bono
also thanked Ed Curry, the retiring journal/society graduate assistant
at Georgia Tech, for his invaluable help. Suzanne Black of Georgia
Tech was introduced as the current journal/society assistant. Bono
noted that the journal had about 600 members/subscribers in 1998 as
well as a very highly regarded and popular website offered as part of
Project Muse, ensuring the journal's continuing international
recognition. He encouraged members to send submissions and to invite
other colleagues to submit manuscripts.
Future SLS Conferences
Hugh Crawford announced the plans for the 1999 Conference in Norman,
to be coordinated by Ronald Schleifer (see the call for papers in this
issue). Crawford also outlined plans for a special SLS European
conference, "Boundary Conditions," to be coordinated by
Gustaaf
Cornelius of the Free University in Brussels in spring 2000 (Easter
week in late April); for more information contact him at:
gustaaf@innet.be. Crawford reported that SLS 2000, to take place in
the fall would encourage works-in-progress and professional issues of
interdisciplinary science studies; the location has not yet been
determined. SLS 2001 is being planned as a joint meeting with the
Society for the Social Studies of Science, location to be announceed.
Travel Awards
An increase in the regular faculty conference registration fee funded
three awards for graduate students, each for $200. Marcel O'Gorman,
Holly Henry, and Christine Watling received awards to help defray the
costs of attending the 1998 conference. Two members (Pamela Gilbert
and Laura Dassow Walls) volunteered to assist Carol Colatrella with
reviewing applications for next year's travel awards.
Elections and Appointment
In the Executive Board meeting Carol Colatrella's appointment as
Executive Director was renewed by the board; she will serve another
three-year term to run from fall 1999 until fall 2002. At the Business
meeting volunteers for serving on the nominating committee were sought
by Susan Squier, who will appoint two members to assist the committee's
chair, Past President Stuart Peterfreund; please send nominations or
self-nominations for faculty members to serve on the nominating
committee to Susan via email (sxs62@psu.edu). Please send nominations
or self-nominations of individuals interested in running for the
elected position Member-at-Large (term of office: fall 1999 until fall
2001) to Stuart Peterfreund (peterfr@lynx.dac.neu.edu).
Prizes
Katherine Hayles presented the 1998 Edwin Bruns Prize, endowed by her
in honor of her father, to Richard Menke, for his essay "Narrative
Reversals and the Thermodynamics of History in Martin Amis's Time's
Arrow"; within their commendation the judges noted: "By using
thermodynamics--in particular, the trope of time's arrow, Menke
ingeniously positions the backwards narrative of Amis's novel as a
doomed Maxwell's demon, a sorting machine whose capacity to decrease
entropy cannot be separated from the novel's introversion of historical
time." Judges of the 1998 Schachterle Prize, endowed by Lance
Schachterle, past SLS president, in honor of his parents, selected as
joint winners Charis Cussins's story "Confessions of a
Bioterrorist:
subject position and reproductive technologies," to be published
in
Playing Dolly: Technocultural formations, fantasies, and fictions of
assisted reproduction, eds. E. Ann Kaplan and Susan Squier (Rutgers
University Press) and Michele Pridmore-Brown's essay "1939-1940:
Of
Virginia Woolf, Gramophones, and Fascism," published in PMLA (May
1998). The judges noted that "Cussin's great achievement lies in
how
she engagingly weaves scientific details within a plot identifying
Mary's risky efforts to resolve the questions of 'whose reproduction
was owned, and by whom'." Pridmore-Brown's essay was commended
"because it so elegantly addresses the relationship between science
and
literature. Addressing the familiar assertion that the Bloomsbury
group was indifferent to political issues, Pridmore-Brown examines . .
. Between the Acts . . . and demonstrates that the novel in fact
actively resists fascism."
Conclusion
Susan invited all participants to attend the wrap-up discussion at the
end of the conference and introduced the evening's plenary performance
by Terry Kapsalis.
Summary of Suggestions Offered during Wrap-Up Discussion 11/8/98
Having just returned from Tom Mitchell's dinosaur session at the
natural history museum, all agreed that SLS98 in Gainesville had been a
terrific conference. Many noted that the plenaries offered by Sander
Gilman, Terry Kapsalis, and Mitchell on different days created an
excellent framework for the meeting. Everyone present thanked Jim
Paxson for his hard work and careful planning. Suggestions offered to
future organizers included:
1. SCHEDULING: We were asked to take into account certain scheduling
conflicts for participants. One suggestion required
"friendlier" slots
for participants coming from a distant time zone, another for avoiding
putting similar panels (on Renaissance subjects, science fiction) in
conflict with one another. While most liked the format of SLS98 in
limiting panel sessions to Friday and Saturday, some noted that having
so many panels in the same time slots meant for lower attendance in a
few sessions.
2. PANELS: Some present felt that the chair-less format of panels was
not optimal and that chairs should be reinstituted in order to
facilitate pre-conference communication and to monitor panels regarding
time limits and general discussion. Some voiced the concern that there
were fewer pedagogical sessions and noted that scientist members had
often indicated these topics as encouraging their participation. There
were so few poster sessions submitted that one present asked for more
careful encouragement of such alternate forms of presentation.
3. EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING: Board members indicated that there might
be a better time to hold the meeting, instead of during the first two
panel sessions. One person suggested, and others agreed, that having
the meeting on Thursday before the first plenary session would be
preferred, if all members could come to the conference a little earlier
than usual.
4. TRAVEL AWARDS: All applauded the institution of travel awards
funded from a portion of regular faculty registrations. All present
agreed that application for such awards should be open to independent
scholars, part-time faculty, and emeritus scholars and others who do
not have institutional funds available for travel. Ann Starr, Martin
Rosenberg, and Bob Markley volunteered to work on applying for
government, corporate, and/or foundation grants that would support
artists (Ann and Martin) and others (Bob) in participating in SLS
conferences.
5. GRADUATE STUDENTS: Conference panels considering professional
issues in interdisciplinarity and science/technology studies were
encouraged as being of interest to graduate students and others.
Several individuals attested to the formal and informal mentoring
networks that grow within and beyond the annual conference and
encouraged faculty to continue to take on the role of mentoring
students outside one's home institution. Some were interested in
promoting a graduate student caucus or reserving a lounge at the
conference for graduate students and faculty to meet informally.
People disagreed about whether identifying research field on an ID
badge would be useful or constraining in interacting with other
participants; everyone agreed to encourage such self-definition for
those interested, while not institutionalizing such descriptions.
