Newsletter
Cervantes Society of
America
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Greetings from Granville, where the academic year has ended but summer seems reluctant to settle in. We hope that all of you had a rewarding academic year and that the summer will be enjoyable and productive. The annual meeting of the CSA was held this year at the University of Kentucky, in conjunction with the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, April 18-20, and the consensus seems to be that the meetings and sessions were quite successful. The Minutes of the meetings are as follows:
Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Council
Saturday, April 20, 1996
The Executive Council was called to order at
12:25pm by Jay Allen, the President. Present were Fred de Armas, Carroll
Johnson, Howard Mancing, George Shipley, Steven Hutchinson, Amy Williamsen,
Judith Whitenack, and Eduardo Urbina. Minutes from the Executive Council
and the Open Business meetings from December, 1994, in San Diego, were approved.
Reports from the Secretary-Treasurer and the Editor of Cervantes were
read (both reports are included below in the Newsletter). As of December
31, 1995, the CSA had 265 individual members and 189 library subscriptions.
The financial statement records a balance of $13,253.30. The report from
Editor Michael McGaha acknowledged Professor Bruce Wardropper's many years
of distinguished service. His resignation from the board and the unfortunate
deaths of Ruth El Saffar and Lowry Nelson, Jr., led to the addition of three
new members as Associate Editors: Daniel Eisenberg, Diana de Armas Wilson,
and Amy Williamsen. Though the quality of articles accepted remains undeniably
strong, some discussion ensued as to ways to encourage more submissions.
McGaha's report requested suggestions as to how to increase the number of
submissions to Cervantes, asking if our policy of anonymous submission
should be reconsidered as a possible deterrent to submissions by senior scholars.
In the subsequent discussion, a compromise emerged involving the possibility
of soliciting one or two invited essays per issue (consistent with the current
policy of publishing the plenary addresses to the annual Open Business meeting)
while preserving the current policy of blind submission. It was announced
that, in his role as editor, Michael McGaha had created an informational
homepage for the journal <http://pages.pomona.edu/mmcgaha>.
The Vice President, Carroll Johnson, discussed
plans for the December, 1996, meeting of the CSA in Washington DC in conjunction
with the MLA Convention. There will be a session of three papers, the Executive
Council and Open Business meeting, the latter with an address by Henry Sullivan,
and our usual Cash Bar. Members are encouraged to take this opportunity to
introduce beginning scholars to the activities of the society.
The order of new business was the need to hold
elections for regional delegates this fall. In accordance with the CSA
constitution, the Council selected one representative to coordinate the
activities of the Nominating Committee. Ellen Anderson was nominated and
unanimously elected as the Board's representative. The remaining two members
are elected at the Open Business meeting. The committee will generate a list
of prospective candidates to be circulated in September to the general
membership. The results of the election will be made public before the meeting
in December and the new regional members will be expected to attend the upcoming
meeting at the MLA in Washington.
In addition, it was noted that the current
terms of the Secretary-Treasurer, Wm. Clamurro, and the editor of
Cervantes, Michael McGaha, conclude at the close of calendar 1997.
The President said that he would formally contact each of them to see if
they were interested in continuing beyond that date. At this time, Eduardo
Urbina, who was named earlier this year by the Executive Council as Chairman
of the standing CSA Committee on Bibliography, indicated his interest in
serving as editor of Cervantes, and presented information relative
to an offer of financial support for the journal from his institution. Council
members felt that any further discussion would have to wait until the current
editor had been contacted. Jay Allen noted that, although the constitution
allowed for individuals to compete for the position, the previous change
of editorship had been amicable and that he hoped this would continue to
be the case.
Eduardo Urbina discussed the creation of the
Cervantes on-line bibliography and asked for the Council's support in publishing
a print version, perhaps as part of a number of Cervantes. Much discussion
ensued. Since the CSA constitution commits the society to print an annual
bibliography—something that has never materialized—the Council
decided to propose at the Open Business meeting that we go ahead with the
project, in cooperation with McGaha, if it proved feasible.
Amy Williamsen suggested the award of a travel
grant of up to $500 each year to an outstanding graduate student, should
the student's submission be accepted for inclusion in a CSA session. The
Council approved the recommendation of this proposal for consideration at
the Open Business meeting.
The Executive Council closed with a reminder
from Carroll Johnson about the upcoming conference on Cervantes at UCLA,
May 23-25, 1996.
Minutes of the Open Business Meeting, April 20, 1996
The meeting was called to order at 2:05pm.
President Jay Allen reported briefly on the discussions held at the Council
meeting and read excerpts from the reports of the Editor of Cervantes
and the Secretary-Treasurer; copies of the financial report provided by Bill
Clamurro were made available for those who wished to consult it.
James Iffland and Howard Mancing were elected
unanimously to membership on the Nominating Committee headed by Ellen Anderson.
The committee will propose a slate from which the new regional delegates
well be elected in the fall.
The need to think about the future of the positions
of Secretary-Treasurer and Editor of Cervantes was also mentioned.
Eduardo Urbina's proposal that the CSA issue
a print version of the annual bibliography, recommended by the Executive
Council as reported above, generated a great deal of discussion. Some members
felt that a print version is no longer needed, given the ready accessibility
of materials on-line; others felt that the Society should take into consideration
the needs of those members who, for whatever reason, may not have access
to the WWW or might simply prefer a print version. Others wanted to make
sure that such a move would not duplicate other efforts already in place,
such as Jaime Fernández's project. A motion was made and approved
that, in principle, the CSA would support Urbina's efforts to issue a print
version of the bibliography in consultation with McGaha on a trial basis.
It was agreed that further information and more discussion are needed before
final decisions are reached.
The members also considered whether or not
the CSA should continue the practice of alternating between meeting with
the MLA and meeting elsewhere, as we have just done. Several possibilities
exist: (1) continue alternating, or not [a strong majority of members present
said yes to alternating]; (2) if so, in conjunction with the KFLC, or alternating
elsewhere; (3) meet twice a year, both with the MLA and elsewhere; (4) sponsor
at least a session of papers at every MLA Convention. QUESTION: Does meeting
away from MLA and Christmas allow for greater participation or for the
participation of a different set of members whose needs are not met by having
our meetings at the MLA? These were some aspects of the problem discussed.
Amy Williamsen's motion to create a travel
grant of up to $500 each year to an outstanding graduate student, should
the student's submission be accepted for inclusion in a CSA session, was
approved. Since there is a graduate student on the CSA program for the upcoming
MLA, we will initiate the award this December.
There was also extended discussion of ways
to promote CSA visibility; several suggestions were offered, including announcing
the Society (and perhaps the newly-created travel award) in the professional
news section of Hispania. Remarks also addressed the need to consider
how the CSA plans to develop a homepage. If we wish to explore the possibilities
of the WWW, we need to consider carefully how to guide the development of
the WEB page beyond the current straightforward informational format already
developed by Michael McGaha in his capacity as editor of Cervantes.
Consensus seemed to favor the members' active collaboration in an ongoing
project. The Open Business meeting was adjourned at around 3:00pm, and Prof.
Michael Gerli delivered the plenary address: “Rewriting Myth and History:
Discourses of Race, Marginality and Resistance in the Captive's
Tale.”
Given that the Secretary, Wm. H. Clamurro could not be present at the meetings,
the minutes were taken by Amy Williamsen and Jay Allen—to whom Clamurro
extends sincere thanks.
During the course of the Kentucky FL Conference
several papers pertinent to Cervantine studies were read. They included the
following: Helena Percas de Ponseti (Grinnell), “Luscinda y Cardenio:
La autenticidad psíquica dentro de la inverosimilitud
histórica”; Daniel Eisenberg (Northern Arizona U.), “Cervantes'
Separation Agreement”; Krzysztof Sliwa (Florida State U.), “El
abuelo de Cervantes, el licenciado Juan de Cervantes”; Mercedes Alcalá
Galán (U. of Wisconsin), “Escritura desatada: la última
parte del Persiles”; Gonzalo Díaz Migoyo (Northwestern),
“La aventura más literaria de don Quijote”; Robert M. Flores
(U. of British Columbia), “Re-encountering Old Friends in Contemporary
Garb”; Thomas Lathrop (U. of Delaware), “The Mysterious Missing
Chpater Title in Don Quijote (I,43)”; Coral López (U.
of Alabama, Birmingham), “Dos notas bibliográficas y una textual
a Rinconete y Cortadillo y El celoso extremeño”;
James A. Parr (UC Riverside), “Don Quixote: On the Preeminence
of the Formal”; Diana de Armas Wilson (U. of Denver), “The Great
Passport of Poetry: Cervantes, Sidney, and La gitanilla”; Eduardo
Urbina (Texas A & M), “From AABC to WWW: the Anuario Bibliográfico
Cervantino”; and Carmen P. Underwood (John A. Logan College), “Don
Quijote de la Mancha: A Man for All Levels.”
After the conference Jay Allen communicated
to the administration of the U. of Kentucky concerning the success of the
CSA's participation in the conference and the many positive comments made
by those CSA members and others who took part. The interest and support of
the University was greatly appreciated by the CSA as an organization and
by those of us who were in attendance.
Fourteen articles were submitted to
Cervantes in 1995. The number of submissions has been almost exactly
the same for the past several years. We would of course very much like to
receive more articles, and I would welcome any suggestions that members of
the Executive Council might have about ways to encourage more submissions.
Do you think it would make any difference if we abandoned the policy of requiring
anonymous submissions? Would that be a good idea? At the present time, most
of the articles we receive are from graduate students and assistant professors.
There is nothing wrong with that, but I suspect that the anonymous submission
policy discourages more senior scholars from sending us their work.
I am heartened by the fact that, in spite of
the low number of submissions, we have managed to maintain very high standards.
This is principally due to the conscientious work of the members of the Editorial
Board. Of the fourteen articles submitted in 1995, only three were accepted
outright, and three were rejected. In the other eight cases, we sent the
authors very detailed suggestions for improving their articles, inviting
them to revise and resubmit. Four of those articles have been accepted on
resubmission, while the others are still outstanding.
I am very sorry to report that Prof. Bruce
Wardropper has resigned from the Editorial Board after many years of
distinguished service. He reviewed his last article for us in March of last
year, as usual submitting a very detailed and thoughtful report, and at that
time he informed me that his failing eyesight made it impossible for him
to continue collaborating on the journal. The deaths of Ruth El Saffar and
Lowry Nelson, Jr., further deprived us of Associate Editors upon whom I had
relied heavily. I have appointed Diana de Armas Wilson, Amy Williamsen, and
Daniel Eisenberg to the Editorial Board during the past year. I could still
use a specialist in comparative literature with expertise on Cervantes and
would welcome your nominations.
We published two special issues of the journal
in 1995. the first contained eleven of the papers presented at an international
colloquium on “The Construction of Character in the Works of
Cervantes” held in Castro del Río in November 1993. I am grateful
to Carlos Castilla del Pino, José Antonio Cerezo, and Daniel Eisenberg
for their assistance in editing that issue. The Ayuntamiento of Castro del
Río purchased five hundred copies of that issue for distribution in
Spain, which provided a nice windfall for the Society's bank account and
at the same time increased the journal's visibility in Spain. During the
coming year, I plan to publish selected papers from a conference held in
Argamasilla de Alba this past November on the topic “Perspectivas en
los estudios cervantinos.” The Fall 1995 issue was dedicated to the
memory of Ruth El Saffar and contained three of the papers presented at a
special session at the 1994 MLA Convention, as well as two regularly submitted
articles. In addition to the articles mentioned, we also published four notes
and seven book reviews in 1995.
On May 23-25, 1996, the colloquium entitled “Cervantes and his Postmodern
Constituencies” was celebrated at UCLA. Numerous prominent
cervantistas, several being members of the CSA, presented papers.
These included Enrique Rodríguez Cepeda (UCLA), “La idea de Cervantes
en la primera ilustración 1690-1739”; Ellen Lokos (Harvard),
“The Politics of Identity and the Enigma of Cervantine Genealogy”;
Enrique Martínez López (UC, Santa Barbara), “Cuadros de
historia, escritos y pintados: Cervantes y los moriscos”; Vsévolod
Bagnó (Fundación Cervantes, St. Petersburg), “Complejo
de castración/anticastración de don Quijote y del
quijotismo”; Edward Dudley (SUNY, Buffalo), “Discontinuous Discourses:
Foucault's ‘Genealogy’ and Cervantes' Galatea”; Juan
Bautista Avalle-Arce (UC, Santa Barbara), “Conflictos pastoriles”;
Daniel Eisenberg (Northern Arizona U.), “Cervantine Studies as a Mirror
of Spain”; Anthony J. Cascardi (UC Berkeley), “Beyond Form: Aesthetics,
Ideology, and Iconoclasm in Cervantes”; Michel Moner (U. Stendhal-Grenoble
III), “Cervantes y el arte de novelar: entre el canon y el caos”;
James A. Parr (UC Riverside), “Narratology: From Booth to Genette and
Beyond”; Diana de Armas Wilson (U. of Denver), “Why Does the Novel
Rise?: Some Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cervantes”; Robert ter
Horst (U. of Rochester), “Blindness and Insight: British Novelists,
Critics of the Novel, and Cervantes”; Isabel Castells Molina (U. de
la Laguna, Spain), “El conflicto cervantismo-quijotismo y el problema
de España: Azorín, Unamuno y Ortega”; Pablo Jauralde Pou
(U. Autónoma de Madrid), “La contribución de la escuela
filológica española al cervantismo”; Barbara Simerka (U.
of Texas), “Critical Approaches to Oppositional Discourses in
Cervantes”; Carroll B. Johnson (UCLA), “Leyendo a Cervantes a finales
del siglo XX”; Anthony Close (Cambridge U.), “Compatibilidad o
incompatibilidad de los ‘-ismos’ y el cervantismo tradicional”;
John J. Allen (U. of Kentucky), “Generational Conflicts within Hispanism:
Notes from the Comedia Wars”; Nicolás Wey-Gómez
(MIT), “Jealousy, Paranoia, and Homosexuality in Cervantes' Fiction”;
Adrienne Martín (Stanford), “A Contrapuntal Rereading of El
Amante Liberal”; Anne J. Cruz (U. of Illinois, Chicago),
“Cervantes y los estudios feministas”; Charles Presberg (U. of
Missouri), “Critical Theory, Cervantes Studies, Don Quijote and Don
Quijote: Anatomy of an Academic Romance”; Alison Weber (U. of Virginia),
“The Ideologies of Cervantine Irony: Liberalism, Postmodernism, and
Beyond”; Mercedes Alcalá Galán & Steven Hutchinson
(U. of Wisconsin), “Cervantes y la retórica: nuevas perspectivas
en la investigación literaria”; George Mariscal (UC San Diego),
“Fin de Siglo: The ‘Crisis’ of Hispanism as Apocalyptic
Myth”; and James Iffland (Boston U.), “‘Cervantismo’
as Social Praxis in the ‘Neo-Post’ Age: Are We Kidding
Ourselves?”
Amy Williamsen informs us that a Festschrift entitled Ingeniosa
Invención: Essays on Golden Age Spanish Literature for Geoffrey L.
Stagg in Honor of His Eightieth Birthday will appear in the
Documentación Cervantina series from Juan de la Cuesta. Co-edited
by Ellen M. Anderson and Amy Williamsen it includes essays by John J. Allen,
Daniel Eisenberg, Dian Fox, Edward H. Friedman, Stephen Harrison, Otmar Hegyi,
Joseph R. Jones, Thomas Lathrop, Francisco López Estrada, Howard Mancing,
Antonio Martí Alanis, Roger Moore, James A. Parr, Helena Percas de
Ponseti, Alberto Sánchez, Karl-Ludwig Selig, and Diana de Armas Wilson.
Anyone interested in reserving a copy or appearing in the tabula
gratulatoria should send a check for $28 US, payable to Amy Williamsen
and with a note on the memo line “Stagg Homage Volume,” addressed
to Amy R. Williamsen, 6933 E. Douglas Pl., Tucson AZ 85710; or the Canadian
Equivalent, make payable to Ellen M. Anderson and sent to her at 20 Celeste
Drive, Scarborough, Ontario CANADA M1E 2V1.
Financial Report 1995
| Balance Brought Forward | $ 10,207.15 | ||
| 1995 Income | |||
| Subscriptions, offprints, back issues | $15,348.00 | ||
| Total Income | $ 15,348.00 | ||
| 1995 Expenditures | |||
| MLA expenses (1994) | |||
| Cash Bar | $ 80.25 | ||
| M. Moner's Travel & Other Expenses | 1,627.40 | ||
| Typesetting Vol. XV no. 1 | 1,623.59 | ||
| Typesetting Vol. XV no. 2 | 1,423.45 | ||
| Typesetting Vol. XVI no. 1 | 850.00 | ||
| Printing/Mailing Vol. XV no. 1 | 3,233.91 | ||
| International Mailing of Vol. XV no.1 | 450.12 | ||
| Printing/Mailing Vol. XV no. 2 | 2,045.88 | ||
| Special Photo Work | 12.87 | ||
| Mail, Telephone, Office Supplies & Expenses | 941.63 | ||
| Bank Service Charges | 12.75 | ||
| Total Expenses | $ 12,301.85 | ||
| Balance (December 31, 1995) | $ 13,253.30 | ||
| ======== | |||
| Members: 265 | |||
| Libraries: 189 |
And speaking of the Society's accounts and financial status, we should once
again remind all members to look at the year to the right of your name on
the mailing label. The year noted means that your dues and subscription are
paid up to the end of the calendar year so indicated. Dues are $20 per year
for regular members, $30 for couples, and $10 per year for students. Checks
(in US dollars) should be made out to the Cervantes Society of America, and
your are cordially invited to pay for more than one year at a time. If you
have any questions about your status or the accuracy of our records, pleas
contact us. (NB: our e-mail address is clamurro@cc.denison.edu)
Cervantes Society of America
c/o William H. Clamurro
Department of Modern Languages
Denison University
Box M
Granville, OH 43023
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| Fred Jehle jehle@ipfw.edu | Publications of the CSA | H–Cervantes |
| URL: http://www.h-net.org/~cervantes/csa/nwslts96.htm | ||