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Emerson Society Papers Volume 26, number 2 Fall 2015 EmErson sociEty PaPErs Distinguished achievement award Presented to sarah ann Wider The Emerson Society presented Sarah Ann Wider with its Notebooks, as well as the Sermons and Lectures, have 2015 Distinguished Achievement Award at the American made possible. Particular moments in the recent (reced - Literature Association conference in Boston on May 23. ing?) past come to life: 1979, when Stanley Cavell began Sarah grew up in Albuquerque, graduating from the “Thinking of Emerson”; 1982, which Lawrence Buell University of New Mexico with honors in English and claimed as “annus mirabilis” for “the Emerson Industry”; Philosophy before pursuing her MA and PhD (1986) from 1991, when Len Gougeon put the question of Emerson’s Cornell University. She is an Emersonian by both educa - antislavery advocacy beyond doubt. tion and family heritage: an intense undergraduate seminar The expansiveness of this study, however, arises from launched her study of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but even its attention to ordinary readers of Emerson as well as pro - before that, her mother and grandmother had read “Self- fessional opinion-makers: “reception” includes acknowl - Reliance” and encouraged its values. At Cornell she edgement of his work’s “life-altering power” by late focused on Emerson’s sermons when most of them were nineteenth-century women, as well as the female inter- still unedited manuscripts; her dissertation and first article locutors who were “influenced by or influence upon ” the examined the sermons’ spoken discourse as a model for canonical author. Such a relational approach, Wider as - the later essays. Now Professor of English and Women’s serts, has been made possible by the publication not only Studies at Colgate University, where she has taught since of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s private writing in the late twen - 1986, Sarah continues scholarly work that includes tieth century, but also by the recovery, publication, and archival digging, aesthetic and philosophical interpreta - analysis of texts by Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, tion, attention to reader response (especially by women), Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Caroline Sturgis Tappan, Caro - and a uniquely personal critical voice. line Healey Dall, Elizabeth Hoar, and Mary Moody Emer - Her broadest and most direct contribution to Emerson son. In Critical Reception, Wider embraces this scholarly studies is The Critical Reception of Emerson: Unsettling achievement but only implies her own participation in it, All Things (Camden House, 2000). Fifteen years after pub - adding the sermon notes of Anna Tilden Gannett to the list lication, it is still the best introduction to the history of of recovered women’s texts and beginning with Gannett’s Emerson in the critics’ hands, from his own lifetime 1836 comment on Emerson (94, 172, 1). In fact she had al - through the twentieth century reassessments arising out ready published a full woman-centered study of Gannett, of New Criticism, new editing, and new attention to his and her work on Emerson’s women readers continues to philosophical ideas. She presents the book as a guide for the present. undergraduate and graduate students “familiarizing them - Anna Tilden: Unitarian Culture and the Problem of selves with the field” (8). But this is much more than a Self-Representation (University of Georgia Press, 1997) reference book: instead it is an ambitious critical interpre - advances the manuscript work that Sarah started with her tation of Emerson’s contested reputation. Even a reader dissertation on Emerson’s sermons. Now, however, she who has participated in the recent decades’ changes will takes up the laywoman’s understanding of the preacher. gain from her insight into the differing arguments of Tilden (1811-46) was an admiring student of Ralph Waldo Matthiessen, Hopkins, and Whicher, and her claim for Emerson’s in his school-keeping days and then his parish - “the power of the editions” is followed with detailed evi - ioner at Second Church, keeping detailed notes at seven - dence of the perspectives that Journals and Miscellaneous teen and attempting to form her character accordingly. (Continued on page 4) 2015 E mErson sociEty Donors Emerson Society members continue generously to join at various “patron” levels of membership. All donations above the $20 annual regular membership go to support special programs of the Society. Dues categories are Life ($500), Sustaining ($50), Contributing ($35), Regular ($20), and Student ($5). You may pay by PayPal or by check, payable to The Emerson Society (U.S. dollars only) and mailed to Bonnie Carr O’Neill, Department of English, Mississippi State University, Drawer E, Mississippi State, MS 39762. For further details, see emerson.tamu.edu/membership. Life Members Don Henley Nancy Craig Simmons David M. Robinson Sean Ross Meehan Elizabeth Addison Mark Hicks Sustaining Members William Rossi Jacqueline Kellon Moran Barry Andrews J. Parker Huber Noelle Baker Dieter Schulz Ralph H. Orth José C. Ballón Michael J. Keating Martha Davidson Joe Thomas Derek Pacheco Margaret Emerson Bancroft Jonathan Emerson Kohler F. Jay Deacon A.E.P. (Ed) Wall Sandy Petrulionis Ronald A. Bosco Wesley T. Mott Helen R. Deese Laura Dassow Walls Susan Roberson Paul S. Christensen Joel Myerson Susan Dunston Stephanie Woolf Mikayo Sakuma Phyllis Cole Nanae Nishio Claude D. Falls Contributing Members Dale R. Schwie Roger l. Cole Izumi Ogura Shoji Goto Peter Balaam Margaret Moreland Stathos Duane H. Cox Samuel K. Parish Robert D. Habich Susan Belasco Mark Sullivan Scott C. Crowley Wendell Refior Robert N. Hudspeth Lucille Bell Amanda Sweeny Leslie E. Eckel Paul Rich Linck Johnson Yoshiko Fujita Yoshio Takanashi Ellen Emerson Robert Richardson, Jr. Michael Lorence Bernabe Genaro Gutierrez Rob Tribken Mary H. Emerson Todd H. Richardson Saundra Morris Jon D. Inners Joseph Urbas Richard Lee Francis Robert Nelson Riddick Jean McClure Mudge Daniel Koch Leslie P. Wilson Len Gougeon George R. Rinhart C. Jack Orr Nancy LeMay Bob Hamilton Fan Shengyu EmErson sociEty PaPErs EMERSON SOCIETY OFFICERS The newsletter of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society President: Susan Dunston (2015) Published at Le Moyne College New Mexico Tech President-Elect: Todd H. Richardson (2015) www.emersonsociety.org University of Texas of the Permian Basin Editor: Jennifer Gurley Secretary/Treasurer: Bonnie Carr O’Neill (2015) Book Review Editor: Leslie Eckel Mississippi State University Design and Production: Peggy Isaacson ADVISORY BOARD Noelle Baker (2015) Emerson Society Papers is published twice a year. Subscriptions, Independent Scholar which include membership in the Society, are $20 a year. You may Neal Dolan (2017) University of Toronto subscribe using PayPal by visiting us at emerson.tamu.edu. Send checks for membership (calendar year) and back issues ($5 each) to David Greenham (2017) University of the West of England Bonnie Carr O’Neill, Department of English, Mississippi State Uni - versity, Drawer E, Mississippi State, MS 39762 . Robert D. Habich (2015) Ball State University ESP welcomes notes and short articles (up to about 8 double-spaced, Martin Kevorkian (2016) typed pages) on Emerson-related topics. Manuscripts are blind ref - University of Texas, Austin ereed. On matters of style, consult previous issues. We also solicit Beatrice F. Manz news about Emerson-related community, school, and other projects; Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association information about editions, publications, and research in progress Jan Stievermann (2016) on Emerson and his circle; queries and requests for information in Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg aid of research in these fields; and significant news of Emersonian Joseph Urbas (2015) scholars. Send manuscripts to the editor, Jennifer Gurley, English Université Michel de Montaigne—Bordeaux Department, LeMoyne College, 1419 Salt Springs Road, Syracuse, New York, 13214 or [email protected] (email submissions are PROGRAM CHAIR much preferred). David Dowling (2015) University of Iowa Review copies of books on Emerson should be sent to book review editor Leslie Eckel, English Department, Suffolk University, WEBMASTER 8 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108. Amy E. Earhart Texas A&M University ©2015 The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, Inc. ISSN 1050-4362 [Term expires at end of year in parentheses.] 2 Emerson Society Papers www.thoreausociety.org. Keep in mind that we also welcome papers that consider the relationship between Thoreau, Emerson, and transcendentalism more broadly. Email 300-word abstracts to Roger Thompson (roger.thomp - [email protected]) by January 15, 2016. Membership in the Emerson Society is required of presenters, but it is not required to submit proposals for consideration. ProsPEcts. Graduate student travel award This award provides up to $1,000 of travel support to present a paper on one of the Emerson Society panels at the American Liter - ature Association Annual Meeting or the Thoreau Society Annual Gathering. Graduate students interested in applying should submit aLa call for Proposals their abstracts by Jan. 15, 2016, to Roger Thompson (roger.thomp - [email protected]) and indicate their desire for consideration The Emerson Society will sponsor two panels at the 27th Annual for the award. Meeting of the American Literature Association, to be held in San Francisco from May 26 to 29, 2016. For information about the Barbara L. Packer Fellowship the conference, see http://americanliteratureassociation.org/calls The American Antiquarian Society is now accepting
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