Scholarly Panels Sponsored by the Louisa May Alcott Society
May 2018: American Literature Association
San Francisco, CA
Session 1: Roundtable Discussion on “The Newness of Little Women”
Moderators: Gregory Eiselein and Anne K. Phillips, Kansas State University
“‘New Friendship Flourished Like Grass in Spring’: The Newness of Friendship in
Little Women,” Sarah Wadsworth, Marquette University"Wedding Marches": Alcott, Marriage and the Newness of Little WomenDaniel Shealy
"Little Women Revisited: Alcott and New Media,” Krissie West, University of
Reading, UK
“The Newness of Little Women and the Ephemeral Horror Mash-Up,” Marlowe Daly-
Galeano, Lewis-Clark State College
“Girl Power: A Look at Recent Little Women Adaptations,” Elise Hooper, Independent Scholar
Session 2: Alcott in the Classroom
Chair: Christine Doyle, Central Connecticut State University
“Louisa May Alcott, Major Author,” Gregory Eiselein, Kansas State University
“‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’: Alcott’s Eight Cousins in the Collegiate Classroom,” Anne K. Phillips, Kansas State University
May 2017: American Literature Association
Boston, MA
Session 1: "Louisa May
Alcott in Concord"
“Louisa May Alcott and
Transcendentalism’s Affective Legacy,” Mark Gallagher, University of
California, Los Angeles
“‘To the Schoolmates of
Ellsworth Devens . . . This Village Story is Affectionately Inscribed,’”
Anne K. Phillips, Kansas State University
“Louisa May Alcott’s
Re-‘Work’ing of Thoreau’s Walden,” Tracey A. Cummings, Lock Haven University
Session 2: Rebecca Harding Davis and Louisa May Alcott
“Reclaiming the Spiritual Self through Maternal Benevolent
Feminism in Rebecca Harding Davis’s Margret
Howth and Louisa May Alcott’s Work,” Jane E. Rose, Purdue University
Northwest-Westville Campus
“Waiting: Temporality and the Race Question in Louisa May Alcott
and Rebecca Harding Davis,” Katie Waddell, University of Kentucky
“Market Negotiations: Rebecca Harding Davis’s and Louisa May
Alcott’s Representations of Women, Work, and Marriage,” Sarah Gray, Langston
University
“‘Life and Labor’ in the 1870s: Davis and Alcott on Work,” Arielle
Zibrak, University of Wyoming Casper
May 2016: American Literature Association
San Francisco, CA
Session 1: “Representations of Teaching and Learning in Alcott"
“Little Women In and Out of
School,” Anne Boyd Rioux, University of New Orleans
‘“Allurements of the
Flesh’: Louisa Alcott on Popular Culture and the Education of
Youth,” Daniel Shealy, University of North Carolina-Charlotte
“Resisting a Transcendental Education:
Louisa May Alcott’s Feminist Self-Culture,” Azelina Flint, University of East
Anglia
“American Woman: Feminine Speech and
the Reformation of National Identity in Louisa May Alcott’s An
Old-Fashioned Girl,” Deanna Stover, Texas A&M University
Session 2: "Alcott for Grown-Ups"
Chris Doyle (Central Connecticut State University), “Sensational Realism: Alcott’s A Long Fatal Love Chase,"
Alicia Beeson (University of North Carolina-Greensboro), “Bridging the Adult/Child Divide: ‘Transcendental Wild
Oats’”
Sarah Wadsworth (Marquette University) "Diana and
Persis and Roderick and Roland: Alcott, James, and the Roman Künstlerroman”
Boston, MA
Session 1: “Conversations: Fuller, Alcott, and Others”
(co-sponsored with the Margaret Fuller
Society)
Katie
Kornacki (University of Connecticut), “‘A Loving League of Sisters’: The Legacy
of Margaret Fuller’s Boston Conversations in Louisa May Alcott's Work:
A Story of Experience”
Marielena
James (University of Pretoria, South Africa), “The Ideals of Companionate
Marriage: A Conversation Between Louisa May Alcott and Margaret Fuller”
Helen
Deese (Massachusetts Historical Society), “Caroline Healy Dall and the Mantle
of Margaret Fuller”
Session 2: Transatlantic Alcott
Beverly Lyon Clark (Wheaton College), “Picturing Europe in Little Women”
Ellen Campbell (Southern
Illinois University Carbondale), “Revising the Marriage Plot in Louisa May
Alcott’s Little Women and George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda”
Charlene Avallone (Kailua
Hawai’i), “Alcott Rewrites George Sand: Moods and Jacques”
May 2014: American Literature Association
Washington, DC
Session 1: "'I
Want Something To Do': Alcott, Whitman, and Nursing in the Nation’s Capital"
Chairs:
Ed Folsom, University of Iowa, and Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, Penn State
Altoona
Emily Waples (University of Michigan), “Nursing’s Domestic Grotesque: Alcott, Whitman, and
the Civil War Wounded”
Sören Fröhlich (University of California San Diego), “The
Pail Tells the Tale: Blood, Nursing, and the Remade Nation”
J.D. Isip, Texas (A & M University-Commerce), “‘This Heart’s Geography’s Map’: Alcott and Whitman Sketching an Affective Landscape”
Session 2: "Louisa
May Alcott’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century: Moods at 150"
Chair:
Anne Phillips, Kansas State University
Daniel Shealy (University of North Carolina-Charlotte), "'Playing with edge tools': Teaching Louisa May
Alcott’s Moods"
Christine
Doyle (Central Connecticut State University), “Moods: ‘The Oversoul’ and Oysters”
Mary Lamb Shelden (Virginia Commonwealth University), "'Shakespeare’s Tragedies Became Her Study': Women’s Genius and the Marriage Question"
May 2013: American Literature Association
Boston, MA
Session 1: "Celebrating the Sesquicentennial of
Hospital Sketches: A Teaching Round Table"
Moderator:
Daniel Shealy (University of North Carolina, Charlotte)
· Mary Lamb Shelden (University
College, Virginia Commonwealth University)
· Shari Goldberg
(University of Texas at Dallas)
· James Hewitson (University
of Tennessee)
· Marlowe Daly-Galeano
(Lewis-Clark State College)
· Paul J. Medeiros (The
Thoreau Society)
Session
2: "Re-visioning Alcott: Her
Impact on the Work of Later Writers and Artists"
Chair:
Beverly Lyon Clark (Wheaton College [Mass.])
· Gregory Eiselein (Kansas
State University): “Louisa May Alcott, Patti Smith, and
Punk Aesthetics”
· Anne K. Phillips (Kansas
State University): “‘Certainly Reminiscent of Alcott’s Little Women’:
The Marches, the Penderwicks, and 'the Family Story as Genre”
· Lauren Rizzuto (University
of Florida): “‘Jo March Is Pregnant and Laurie’s the Father’: Fanfiction and Little
Women”
November 2012: Society
for the Study of American Women Writers
Denver, CO
“Louisa
May Alcott’s Engaged Citizenship”
Chair: Mary
Lamb Shelden (VA Commonwealth University)
· Emily Dolan (University
of CT): “Louisa May Alcott’s Rehabilitation of the Fallen Woman in Behind a Mask”
· Emily Waples (University
of Michigan): “The Child Citizen: Utopian Education and Louisa May Alcott’s Moods”
· Amy M. Thomas
(Montana State University): “Alcott and the Democracy of Literature: Parallel
Writings in The Woman’s Journal and The Youth’s Companion”
May 2012: American
Literature Association
San Francisco, CA
Session
1: “Teaching Alcott in Survey and Seminar”
Chair: Mary
Lamb Shelden (VA Commonweath University)
· Gary Williams (University
of Idaho): “Alcott, Julia Ward Howe, and the Ways Logs Turn to Ashes”
· Mischa Renfroe
(Middle Tennessee State University): “Teaching Alcott in ‘Law and Literature’”
· Gregory Eiselein
(Kansas State University): “Gender, Comedy, and Teaching Eight Cousins in the Alcott/Twain Seminar”
Session
2: “Louisa May Alcott and Literary Theory”
Chair:
Gregory Eiselein (Kansas State University)
· Sean McAlister (University
of British Columbia): “Moods and Masquerades: Alcott’s Emersonian Experiments”
· Bruce Ronda (Colorado
State University): “‘Little’: Souvenirs and Interiors in Eight Cousins”
· Ilana Vine (New York
University): “‘She Will Make a Charming Little Mother’: Oedipal Ties and Family
Fictions in An Old-Fashioned Girl
May 2011: American
Literature Association
Boston, MA
Session
1: “Alcott and Other Authors”
Chair:
Sandra Harbert Petrulionis (Penn State Altoona)
· Yvonne Elizabeth
Pelletier (University of Tennessee): “Alcott and the Byronic Figure”
· Jennifer Gurley
(LeMoyne College): “Resisting Emerson and Extending Ellen Sturgis Hooper”
· Robert Arbour
(Indiana University): “Nursing a Nation: The Wartime Sentimentality of Louisa
May Alcott and Walt Whitman”
Session
2: “Alcott as Pop Culture Icon”
Chair: Mary
Lamb Shelden (VA Commonweath University)
· Daniel Shealy (University
NC Charlotte): “‘The Autograph Fiend is Abroad’: Louisa May Alcott and Fame”
· Beverly Lyon Clark
(Wheaton College): “Little Women
Spinoffs a Century Ago; or, Beth Becomes an Entrepreneur”
· Marlowe Daly-Galeano
(University AZ): “Writing in the Movies: Jo March as an Author in Little Women Films”
May 2010, American
Literature Association
San Francisco, CA
“Women’s
Communities of Work in Alcott’s Circle”
Chair: Laura
Dassow Walls (USC)
· Mary Lamb Shelden
(VA Commonwealth University): “‘Our Best Thanks to the Sewing Circle’: Concord Endeavors
on Behalf of the Holley School for Freedmen”
· Miki Pfeffer (University
New Orleans): “Tilting towards Community: Writing Women at the World’s Fair in
New Orleans, 1884-1885”
· John Matteson (John
Jay College, CUNY): “‘In the Face of Cruelest Facts’: Margaret Fuller, Working
Girls, and the Trouble with Chastity”
May 2009: American
Literature Association
Boston, MA
Session
1: “Recent Alcott Scholarship”
Chair: Mary
Lamb Shelden (VA Commonweath University)
· Leslie Perrin Wilson
(Concord Free Public Lib.): “Beyond Amy March: May Alcott as Artist”
· Roberta Trites
(Illinois State University): “Alcott and the Genesis of the Adolescent Reform
Novel”
· Daniel Shealy (University
of NC Charlotte): “‘All America Seems To Be Abroad’: The Alcott Sisters’
European Tour”
Session
2: “Roundtable: Making the Documentary Louisa
May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women”
Chair:
Sandra Harbert Petrulionis (Penn State Altoona)
· Nancy Porter
(Producer/Director)
· Harriet Reisen
(Producer/Director/Screenwriter)
· Joel Myerson (University
SC)
· John Matteson (John
Jay College, CUNY)
May 2008: American
Literature Association
San Francisco, CA
Session
1: “The Concord Reformers”
Chair:
Sandra Harbert Petrulionis (Penn State Altoona)
· Katherine Adams (University
Tulsa): “Self Possession Rightly Understood: Property and Individuality in Two
Alcott Utopias”
· Jessica A. Isaac (University
KS): “‘Little Almost Publics’: Louisa May Alcott’s Work and the Function(ing) of the American Family”
· John Matteson (John
Jay College, CUNY): “‘Hitherto Unexplored Crypts of Psychology’: The Alcotts
and the Spiritual Healing Movement”
Session
2: “Roundtable: Teaching Little Women”
Moderator:
Mary Lamb Shelden (VA Commonweath University)
· Anne Phillips
(Kansas State University): “‘Borne out shrieking by the hero’ or ‘the villain’?
Using Textual Variants from Little Women
in the Classroom”
· Anne Bruder (University
NC Chapel Hill): “Texts and Contexts: Louisa May Alcott in the American Studies
Classroom”
· Gregory Eiselein
(Kansas State University): “Contextualizing Little
Women”
May 2007: American
Literature Association
Boston, MA
Session
1: “The Dramatic Alcotts”
Chair: Chair:
Sandra Harbert Petrulionis (Penn State Altoona)
· Jennie McDonald (University
of Denver): “Gothic Elements and Movie Adaptations of ‘The Witch’s Curse’”
· Laura King (University
of Chicago): “Jo March as Playwright: Success or Sellout?”
· Julie Wilhelm (University
of CA Davis): “‘Don’t laugh, act as if it was all right!”: The Witch’s Curse
and other Clumsy Gender Theatrics in Little
Women”
Session
2: “Orchard House, Historical and Imaginative”
Chair: Jan
Turnquist (Orchard House)
· Mary Lamb Shelden
(Northern IL University): “Jo March: The Sanewoman in the Attic”
· Caroline Hellman
(CUNY): “Building Castles of Reform: Louisa May Alcott’s Material Feminism”
· Callie Sadler Oppedisano
(Tufts University): “What They Wore: ‘The Rival Prima Donnas’ to Roderigo”
November 2006: Society
for the Study of American Women Writers
Philadelphia, PA
“Women’s
Letters and the Culture of Reform”
Chair:
Sandra Harbert Petrulionis (Penn State Altoona)
· Helen Deese (Mass.
Historical Soc.): “Reformers at Odds: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Caroline
Healy Dall”
· Mary De Jong (Penn
State Altoona): Comment on Deese, re: Peabody and Dall in the correspondence of
Anna Q. T. Parsons
· Mary Lamb Shelden
(No. ILL Univ): “‘In the Concord Barrel’: The Louisa May Alcott-Sallie Holley
Correspondence”
· Sandy Petrulionis
(Penn State Altoona): Comment on Shelden, re: importance of letters for Concord
women abolitionists
May 2006: American
Literature Association
San Francisco, CA
“The
Alcotts in Fiction”
Chair: Mary
Lamb Shelden (Northern ILL University)
· Janice Alberghene
(Fitchburg State College): “Louisa and Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places”
· Larry Carlson (College
of Charleston): “Orpheus at War: March as Fictional(ized) History”
· Daniel Shealy (University
NC Charlotte): “‘The Curious Role of Lady Detective’: The Louisa May Alcott Mysteries”
May 2005: American Literature
Association
Boston, MA
“Alcott
in the New Century: Establishing a Louisa May Alcott Society”
Chair: Mary
Lamb Shelden (VA Commonweath University)
· Daniel Shealy (University
NC Charlotte)
· Joel Myerson (USC)
· Sarah Elbert (SUNY Binghampton)
· Sarah Elbert (SUNY Binghampton)
