PSC-CUNY Research Awards (Traditional A) Control No: TRADA-42-397 Name : Richardson, Joan Rank: Professor Address : Tenured: Yes College: GRADUATE SCHOOL Telephone : Panel: English & Creative Writing Email: Discipline : English Human Subject Use No Animal Subject Use No Supplementary Materials No List of Supplementary Material None Department ENGLISH Title of Proposed Project: Wallace Stevens and Jean Wahl: "The Intensest Rendezvous" Brief Abstract Wallace Stevens was secretive about sources. His figure of "the hermit in a poet's metaphors" signaled his desire that readers journey to seek out and find answers to the questions posed by his intricately plotted lines. I have been studying Stevens for about forty years, and just recently found a path to one of his richest sources. Stevens's relationship with Jean Wahl in connection with Les Entretiens de Pontigny conference at Mount Holyoke College in 1943 has been remarked by many, including Stanley Cavell. What has not been given attention, however, is the depth of the poet's indebtedness to Wahl. Readers have wondered, for example, where Stevens came to his knowledge of Heidegger, whom he had not read. I realize now that it would have been through Stevens's relationship with Wahl, which began before the Pontigny occasion and continued until the poet's death. Relevant Publications * In contract and in progress: PRAGMATISM AND AMERICAN CULTURE, a book-length study & Scholarship reflecting my ongoing research as described in my applications for earlier funding under the title of THE FRENCH CONNECTION AND PRAGMATIST AESTHETICS, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2012 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Thinking in Cavell: The Transcendentalist Strain," chapter solicited for inclusion in STANLEY CAVELL: LITERATURE AND CRITICISM, ed. James Loxley and Andrew Taylor, forthcoming late 2011, Manchester University Press (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding as described in applications for THE FRENCH CONNECTION AND PRAGMATIST AESTHETICS). * "Immigrant Philosopher: Stanley Cavell and Unapproachable America," Solicited essay (5000 words), forthcoming Summer 2011, RARITAN: A QUARTERLY REVIEW. * "Stanley Cavell's Thoreau and Me," Invited speaker, American Literature Association Meeting, Boston, MA, May 2011. * "Wallace Stevens and Science," Upcoming-Scheduled, Philoctetes Center for the Study of Imagination, New York, NY, Invited Lecture, April 2011 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding, as above). * "The Uses of Pragmatism" Symposium, Invited Speaker, University of Illinois at Urbana, September 2010 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding, as above). * "Emerson and Ecopoetics," Invited speaker, Quips and Cranks Panel, School of Visual Arts, New York City, September 2010. * "Pragmatism: 'She widens the field of search for God'," Keynote Lecture, William James Conference, Hamburg, Germany, June 2010 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding, as above). * "William James in DEADWOOD," Solicited Essay, THE HOPKINS REVIEW, Summer 2010 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "The Transcendentalist Strain: Stanley Cavell Talks with BOOKFORUM," Lead piece, an interview with Cavell solicited by BOOKFORUM, published in the April/May 2010 issue, Vol. 17, No. 1. (The published interview represents less one-tenth of the transcription of 80 double-spaced typed pages; I shall attend to publishing the full interview when time permits. The questions/ contexts I composed in preparation for the interview result from PSC-CUNY funding. The content here is entirely different from that comprising the chapter sub-titled "The Transcendentalist Strain" forthcoming in the Manchester University Press volume, STANLEY CAVELL: LITERATURE AND CRITICISM. * Bienecke Library Fellowship Award, April 2010, for research connected to William James's reading of Jonathan Edwards (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "William James, Henri Bergson, and Charles Darwin," Invited Lecture, March, 2010, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Henry James and Wallace Stevens," Solicited Essay, THE WALLACE STEVENS JOURNAL, Spring 2010 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Wallace Stevens's New York as 'New Atlantis'," Invited Participant, Wallace Stevens in New York Conference, Gallatin School, New York University, March 2010 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Pragmatism and Neo-Pragmatism: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Richard Rorty," Invited Participant, Roundtable, Modern Language Association Meeting, Philadelphia, December 2009 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Jean Wahl, Henri Bergson, and William James," Invited Talk, Society for Literature, Science and the Arts Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, November 5-8, 2009 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Crash Course: Cultural History and The Great Depression," Review Essay, BOOKFORUM, Vol. 16, Issue 3 (September/October/November 2009). * "Imagination, Science, and the Use of Words," The Imagination Seminar, a Faculty Seminar sponsored by The Macaulay Honors College of CUNY, Invited Speaker and Session Leader, November 9, 2009 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Stanley Cavell and Ralph Waldo Emerson," Invited Lecture, American Literature Association Meeting, Boston, MA, May 2009. * "'Entwined Unities': Literature and Science," Invited with Steven Meyer for a Colloquium, Columbia University, New York, NY, April 2009 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Thirteen Ways and More of Looking at Pragmatism," Invited Participant, Pragmatism Roundtable, Modern Language Association Meeting, San Francisco, December 2008 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "'Shall I uncrumple this much-crumpled thing?': Stevens, Whitehead, William James, Bergson and Deleuze," Invited Speaker, Society for Literature, Science and the Arts Meeting, Charlotte, NC, November 13-19, 2008 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "The Evolution of Emerson's NATURE in William James and Wallace Stevens," Invited Lecture, All Souls Unitarian Church, New York, NY, October 2008 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "'A Great Beating of Wings': Bruno Latour, William James, and Angels," Society for Literature, Science and the Arts Biannual European Meeting, Berlin, June 2008 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "The Varieties of American Experience: William James and Philosophical Pluralism": Keynote Lecture, The European Association of American Studies Bi-Annual Meeting, Oslo, Norway, May 2008 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "'Return of the Repressed': Stanley Cavell and Ralph Waldo Emerson," Invited Lecture, Stanley Cavell and Literary Criticism Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2008. * "Writing the World," Literature and the Environment, Panel Discussion sponsored by The Center for the Humanities, CUNY, Invited Moderator and Speaker, together with Bill McKibben, Susan Howe and Daniel Hillel, April 2008 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding). * "Invisible Visibility: Richard Powers & The Sound of Words," Society for Literature,Science and the Arts," Invited Speaker,Portland, Maine, November 2007. * "William James's French Connection," Invited Lecture, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, November 2007 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding) * "Motion Research: Angus Fletcher describes the scientific revolution's effect on language," BOOKFORUM, Vol. 14, No. 3 (September/October/November 2007) * "A Brief Natural History of Pragmatism," Invited Lecture, Columbia University, February 2007 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding) * "'The Mind Feels When It Thinks': Jonathan Edwards's Aesthetics," Invited Speaker, Modern Language Association Meeting, Philadelphia, Pa., December 2006 (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding) * "William James's Feeling OF IF," Invited Lecture, American Philosophical Association and William James Society, Joint Meeting, Washington, D.C., December 2006 (Resulted from PSC- CUNY funding) * A NATURAL HISTORY OF PRAGMATISM: THE FACT OF FEELING FROM JONATHAN EDWARDS TO GERTRUDE STEIN(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2007). (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding) * "Wallace Stevens: A Likeness," THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO WALLACE STEVENS, ed., John Serio (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2007). * "Recombinant ANW: Helmholtz, William James, and Whitehead," CONFIGURATIONS: A JOURNAL OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, and TECHNOLOGY (Fall/Winter 2006). (Resulted from PSC-CUNY funding) * "Terms of Address: Emerson's lectures shed light on his essays," BOOKFORUM, Vol. 12, No. 5 (February/March 2006). * "Music is Thinking, Then, Sound: An Aesthetic Exercise," 'NEVER AGAIN WOULD BIRDS' SONG BE THE SAME': NEW ESSAYS ON EARLY MODERN AND MODERN POETRY, ed., Jennifer Lewin (New Haven: Beinecke Library, University Press of New England, 2002). *"The Fact of Feeling: American Aesthetics," REAL: YEARBOOK OF RESEARCH IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE, Volume 15: PRAGMATISM AND LITERARY STUDIES, ed., Winfried Fluck (Tubingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1999). *WALLACE STEVENS: COLLECTED POETRY AND PROSE, ed., with Frank Kermode (New York: Library of America, 1997). *"Emerson's Sound Effects," RARITAN: A QUARTERLY REVIEW, Volume XVI, Number 3 (Winter 1997), 83-101. *"Learning Stevens's Language: The Will & The Weather," TEACHING WALLACE STEVENS: PRACTICAL ESSAYS, Tennessee Studies in Literature, Volume 35. eds. John N. Serio and B.J. Leggett (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994). *"Wallace Stevens: New York 1914," WAYS OF KNOWING, ed., John Brockman (New York: Prentice Hall, 1992). *WALLACE STEVENS: THE LATER YEARS, 1923-1955 (New York: Beech Tree Books/ William Morrow & Co., 1988). *WALLACE STEVENS: THE EARLY YEARS,