Saturday, January 9, 2027: 3:30 PM-4:45 PM
306B (LACC)
In nineteenth-century American studies, nonfiction scholarship has become more prominent as primary sources are becoming more readily available, including with Thoreau’s sprawling, digitized Journal. Nonfiction studies of early Appalachian travel writing, too, have emerged in recent years. In Hawthorne Studies, nonfiction studies of Hawthorne and his circle, including Sophia and her writings, continue to have much currency. Hawthorne’s journals from his English and Italian visits, as well as The American Notebooks, provide a window into how he internalized his authorial fame and how he developed an aesthetic method, among other observations. Hawthorne wrote extensively in the genre of nonfiction, whether with his political biography of Franklin Pierce, his reflection on England and America in Our Old Home, or his later study of colonial history in Grandfather’s Chair. Hawthorne’s Lost Notebooks, from 1835-1841, discovered in the 1970s, offers even more insight into both Hawthorne’s thinking and his writerly approaches. Hawthorne’s epistolary works comprise some of his memorable exchanges on love, relationships, and Transcendental idealism, too. Hawthorne’s nonfiction can be understood in dialectic relation to his fiction in several ways, as nonfiction journal writing provides a mirror into Hawthorne’s method. For this guaranteed MLA session, the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society solicits papers that engage with Hawthorne’s nonfiction writings in fresh ways, considers his long and short fiction in relation to the nonfiction writings, or compares his nonfiction works to other nineteenth-century writers and their works. The panel includes a diverse group of presenters, including graduate students and independent scholars. The panel is needed to further scholarship in our field, that is, Hawthorne Studies. We think the panel fits in well with the conference theme. The individual presenters include works on Hawthorne and history, including hidden history (North Adams relation, Hawthorne and immortality). The works are new, unpublished arguments in Hawthorne Studies. We as an organization have funding to provide for travel.
Organizer:
Michael Martin
Presider:
Ariel Silver