"Food, Drink, and Willa Cather's Writing"
The 2010 Willa Cather Spring Conference, to be held June 3-5, will offer three days of events on the fresh topic of food and drink in Willa Cather's writing, based in Cather's "home town" of Red Cloud and the surrounding countryside. The conference will be held in Red Cloud and will open on June 3 with a Scholars' Symposium, presenting papers on the conference topic. (See call for papers below.) The two following days will feature a variety of events for Cather readers and scholars: lively discussions with Cather scholars, historians, and cooks; kitchen tours at Cather historic sites, with samplings of Cather-related foods; wine tastings, a keynote address by Professor Susan Meyer of Wellesley College, and a barn dance supper based on Cather's Nebraska story, "The Bohemian Girl. " O Pioneers! and "The Bohemian Girl" will be the featured texts for the conference, but discussions will range throughout Cather's writing.
Ann Romines and Lu Williams will serve as co-directors for the conference; if you have questions, please contact Romines at annrom3@verizon.net. We look forward to seeing you in Red Cloud for Spring Conference 2010!
Willa Cather Spring Conference
Red Cloud, NE: June 3-5 2010 Food, Drink, and Willa Cather's Writing
CALL FOR PAPERS: FOOD, DRINK, AND WILLA CATHER'S WRITING
A Scholars' Symposium, on June 3, will kick off the annual Spring Conference, this year an exploration of the importance of food and drink in Cather's writing. This day of scholarly papers and discussion will be followed by two days of events related to the conference theme, including kitchen tours at Cather-related sites, food and wine tastings, talks, panels, and lively discussions of food-and-drink related issues in Cather's work and life, and a variety of celebratory events in Cather's Nebraska home town and the surrounding countryside.
For possible presentation at the Scholars' Symposium, please submit abstracts of approximately 300 words for papers related to the conference theme. Presentation time for papers will be 15-20 minutes. The featured texts for this conference will be O Pioneers! and "The Bohemian Girl," but papers addressing food and/or drink issues in any aspect of Cather's career will be welcome. A partial list of possible topics:
Food, ethnicity, and place
Food and drink as transmitters of culture
Food, drink, and class
Food, food preparation, and matters of gender
Food/drink and celebration, such as barnwarming in "The Bohemian Girl,"
various Christmas celebrations, Mrs. Forrester's dinner parties.
Food/drink and religious celebration, such as communion.
Food as comfort and nurture (as in "Neighbour Rosicky")
Domestic culture and its transmission, as in Shadows on the Rock or Marie's
career in O Pioneers! Also the tyranny of domestic culture, especially
food preparation, as in "A Wagner Matinee" or Pauline's career in
Lucy Gayheart
Wine and/or beer: Vavrika's saloon in "The Bohemian Girl," temperance in
One of Ours, wines in The Professor's House, alcoholism in The Song of
the Lark, etc..
Food production: agriculture and the Great Plains (O Pioneers, My Antonia,
One of Ours, etc.) as well as agriculture in other regions, as in Shadows
on the Rock, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Death Comes for the
Archbishop
Cookbooks (The Cather Foundation Archives contains the Cather family
collection of cookbooks.)
Willa Cather and twentieth and twenty-first century food issues.
Paper presenters at the Scholars' Symposium will be invited to submit their papers for possible publication in a special expanded edition of The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review.
Please send your proposals, as well as questions about this event, to Professor Ann Romines, conference co-director, at annrom3@verizon.net. Proposals are due by 1 Feb. 2010.
\n . We look forward to seeing you in Red Cloud for Spring Conference 2010!
Willa Cather Spring Conference
Red Cloud, NE: June 3-5 2010 Food, Drink, and Willa Cather's Writing
CALL FOR PAPERS: FOOD, DRINK, AND WILLA CATHER'S WRITING
A Scholars' Symposium, on June 3, will kick off the annual Spring Conference, this year an exploration of the importance of food and drink in Cather's writing. This day of scholarly papers and discussion will be followed by two days of events related to the conference theme, including kitchen tours at Cather-related sites, food and wine tastings, talks, panels, and lively discussions of food-and-drink related issues in Cather's work and life, and a variety of celebratory events in Cather's Nebraska home town and the surrounding countryside.
For possible presentation at the Scholars' Symposium, please submit abstracts of approximately 300 words for papers related to the conference theme. Presentation time for papers will be 15-20 minutes. The featured texts for this conference will be O Pioneers! and "The Bohemian Girl," but papers addressing food and/or drink issues in any aspect of Cather's career will be welcome. A partial list of possible topics:
Food, ethnicity, and place
Food and drink as transmitters of culture
Food, drink, and class
Food, food preparation, and matters of gender
Food/drink and celebration, such as barnwarming in "The Bohemian Girl,"
various Christmas celebrations, Mrs. Forrester's dinner parties.
Food/drink and religious celebration, such as communion.
Food as comfort and nurture (as in "Neighbour Rosicky")
Domestic culture and its transmission, as in Shadows on the Rock or Marie's
career in O Pioneers! Also the tyranny of domestic culture, especially
food preparation, as in "A Wagner Matinee" or Pauline's career in
Lucy Gayheart
Wine and/or beer: Vavrika's saloon in "The Bohemian Girl," temperance in
One of Ours, wines in The Professor's House, alcoholism in The Song of
the Lark, etc..
Food production: agriculture and the Great Plains (O Pioneers, My Antonia,
One of Ours, etc.) as well as agriculture in other regions, as in Shadows
on the Rock, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Death Comes for the
Archbishop
Cookbooks (The Cather Foundation Archives contains the Cather family
collection of cookbooks.)
Willa Cather and twentieth and twenty-first century food issues.
Paper presenters at the Scholars' Symposium will be invited to submit their papers for possible publication in a special expanded edition of The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review.
Please send your proposals, as well as questions about this event, to Professor Ann Romines, conference co-director, at annrom3@verizon.net. Proposals are due by 1 Feb. 2010.