Welcome !
This website is designed to facilitate the activities of the Evelyn Scott Society and to promote exchange of information and scholarship on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963) and writers in her circle. Please explore the pages and feel welcomed to join the Society by providing us with your email address.
Call for Papers for the American Literature Association 2024 (due January 12, 2024)
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism and modernism, and she had a variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, Emma Goldman, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
The American Literature Association's 35th annual conference will meet at the Palmer House Hilton between May 23rd and 26th in Chicago, Illinois. For further information or specific questions about the conference, please consult the ALA website at https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/ or contact the conference director, Professor Leslie Petty, at [email protected].
Please send an abstract and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 12th, 2024.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
The American Literature Association's 35th annual conference will meet at the Palmer House Hilton between May 23rd and 26th in Chicago, Illinois. For further information or specific questions about the conference, please consult the ALA website at https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/ or contact the conference director, Professor Leslie Petty, at [email protected].
Please send an abstract and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 12th, 2024.
Call for Papers for the American Literature Association 2023 (due January 13, 2023)
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
The American Literature Association’s 34th annual conference will meet at the Westin Copley Place May 25-28, 2023 (Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend). For further information or specific questions, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliteratureassociation.org or contact the conference director, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield, at [email protected]. or the Executive Director of the ALA, Professor Alfred Bendixen of Princeton University, at [email protected].
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 13th, 2023.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
The American Literature Association’s 34th annual conference will meet at the Westin Copley Place May 25-28, 2023 (Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend). For further information or specific questions, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliteratureassociation.org or contact the conference director, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield, at [email protected]. or the Executive Director of the ALA, Professor Alfred Bendixen of Princeton University, at [email protected].
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 13th, 2023.
Article on Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay-Scott's Experiences in Brazil
Maria das Graças Salgado has published a new article in the journal Life Writing that reviews the writing that Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay Scott did regarding their experiences in Brazil.
Maria das Graças Salgado (2022) "Dissonant Discourses: Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay-Scott’s Experiences in Brazil (1914–1919)," Life Writing, DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2022.2116762
The abstract reads: "This article analyses the discourse of individuals who go through the same experience within the context of self-imposed exile. The subjects involved are the American writers Evelyn Scott (née Elsie Dunn, 1893–1963) and Cyril Kay-Scott (né Frederick Kreighton Wellman, 1874–1960). They scandalised their Southern society when, in 1913, they fled Louisiana and eloped to London and then Brazil with little money and no passports. Their experiences were extraordinary. After years of a semi-nomadic existence eking out a living in different parts of Brazil, the Scotts ended up in the country’s arid north-eastern backlands confronting isolation, poverty and near starvation. This work investigates the couple’s perception of the years they shared in the tropics. Carrying with them elite New Orleans values, how did they respond to the hardships of early twentieth-century Brazil? How did gender and emotion affect their daily lives and discourses about the same events? What specific events of their experiences were shared? Given that in different periods they wrote autobiographies about their lives in Brazil, the analysis is based on Evelyn Scott’s Escapade ([1923] 1995) and Cyril Kay-Scott’s Life is too short (1943). Results indicate that their survival in Brazil was unequally challenging, leading them to produce dissonant discourses."
You can read the article at this link.
Maria das Graças Salgado is an Associate Professor of English at Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a translator from English into Portuguese. Researcher in the field of critical discourse analysis and life writing, she has published on gender, memory, and emotion in life-writing discourses such as letters and autobiographies. She translated Stefan Zweig and Lotte Zweig’s South American Letters: New York, Argentina and Brazil, 1940–1942 (Versal 2013). And, more recently, Evelyn Scott’s autobiography Escapade (Versal 2019), an account of her elopement with a married man from New Orleans to experience self-imposed exile in Brazil during World War One. She is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Evelyn Scott Society.
Maria das Graças Salgado (2022) "Dissonant Discourses: Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay-Scott’s Experiences in Brazil (1914–1919)," Life Writing, DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2022.2116762
The abstract reads: "This article analyses the discourse of individuals who go through the same experience within the context of self-imposed exile. The subjects involved are the American writers Evelyn Scott (née Elsie Dunn, 1893–1963) and Cyril Kay-Scott (né Frederick Kreighton Wellman, 1874–1960). They scandalised their Southern society when, in 1913, they fled Louisiana and eloped to London and then Brazil with little money and no passports. Their experiences were extraordinary. After years of a semi-nomadic existence eking out a living in different parts of Brazil, the Scotts ended up in the country’s arid north-eastern backlands confronting isolation, poverty and near starvation. This work investigates the couple’s perception of the years they shared in the tropics. Carrying with them elite New Orleans values, how did they respond to the hardships of early twentieth-century Brazil? How did gender and emotion affect their daily lives and discourses about the same events? What specific events of their experiences were shared? Given that in different periods they wrote autobiographies about their lives in Brazil, the analysis is based on Evelyn Scott’s Escapade ([1923] 1995) and Cyril Kay-Scott’s Life is too short (1943). Results indicate that their survival in Brazil was unequally challenging, leading them to produce dissonant discourses."
You can read the article at this link.
Maria das Graças Salgado is an Associate Professor of English at Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a translator from English into Portuguese. Researcher in the field of critical discourse analysis and life writing, she has published on gender, memory, and emotion in life-writing discourses such as letters and autobiographies. She translated Stefan Zweig and Lotte Zweig’s South American Letters: New York, Argentina and Brazil, 1940–1942 (Versal 2013). And, more recently, Evelyn Scott’s autobiography Escapade (Versal 2019), an account of her elopement with a married man from New Orleans to experience self-imposed exile in Brazil during World War One. She is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Evelyn Scott Society.
Call for Papers for the American Literature Association 2022 (due January 14, 2022)
33rd Annual American Literature Association Conference, Chicago, IL, May 26-29, 2022.
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 14th, 2022.
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 14th, 2022.
New article on Evelyn Scott and Elizabeth Bishop in Cadernos de Linguagem e Sociedade
"Samambaia X Cercadinho: O Brazil De Elizabeth Bishop E De Evelyn Scott," by Maria das Graças Salgado (Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro) was published by Cadernos de Linguagem e Sociedade in 2021.
The abstract reads: "This paper analyzes the discourse that Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) and Evelyn Scott (1893-1963) constructed about Brazil from the starting point of their experiences in the country. The first, during post-World War II, the latter, during World War I. Carrying an elite social background, how did they view Brazil of those days? Which relationships did they establish with its language and culture? Which emotions did they experience in the new society? Supported by perspectives of Critical Discourse Analysis and of Anthropology of Emotions, the analysis is based mainly on Escapada (2019), Scott’s autobiography, and on poems and critical articles about Bishop."
You can access this article at this link.
The abstract reads: "This paper analyzes the discourse that Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) and Evelyn Scott (1893-1963) constructed about Brazil from the starting point of their experiences in the country. The first, during post-World War II, the latter, during World War I. Carrying an elite social background, how did they view Brazil of those days? Which relationships did they establish with its language and culture? Which emotions did they experience in the new society? Supported by perspectives of Critical Discourse Analysis and of Anthropology of Emotions, the analysis is based mainly on Escapada (2019), Scott’s autobiography, and on poems and critical articles about Bishop."
You can access this article at this link.
University of Tennessee Republishes Two Volumes of Evelyn Scott's Work
Very exciting news that University of Tennessee Press has released two new editions of Evelyn Scott's work -- The Narrow House with a critical introduction by Mary E. Papke and Background in Tennessee with a critical introduction by Bill Hardwig. Regarding The Narrow House, from their website: "In this new critical edition, Mary E. Papke contextualizes Scott’s first and possibly best writing effort with an astute introduction that discusses Scott and her contemporaries, the work’s importance to the genre of the novel, and the small but ongoing reclamation of Scott’s place in literary history. Completely updated and formatted for a modern readership." Regarding Background in Tennessee, from their website: "In this new edition, Bill Hardwig provides an analytical introduction that guides the reader through Scott’s intricate and winding exploration of early twentieth-century Tennessee and her own past. He notes at once Scott’s ambivalence toward her native South and yet the nostalgia with which she recounts personal memories. Complicated yet critical to a full understanding of Evelyn Scott and her literary legacy, this edition of Background in Tennessee makes available an important voice in Tennessee’s literary history for a new generation." Congratulations on these new editions!
Maria das Graças Salgado Introduces Escapada to New Audiences
Maria das Graças Salgado is introducing Brazilian audiences to Escapada in a series of launch events for her new translation of Scott's auto fictional memoir. In the above, she is speaking to an audience gathered on January 15, 2020 in Senhor do Bonfim, Bahia.
Escapade published in a new Portuguese translation in Brazil by Maria das Graças Salgado
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Evelyn Scott scholar Maria das Graças Salgado has published a translation of Escapade in Portuguese. The journal Hysteria provides an article with background on Scott's autobiography. The edition has been published by Versal Editores. Professor Salgado is a professor of literature at the Universidade Rural do Rio de Janeiro. In this interview article she discusses the relationship between Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay Scott that focuses the text, the backdrop of World War I, and the risks both took. She speaks about Evelyn Scott's experience of alienation and exile, having left the U.S. with few financial resources and being estranged from Brazilian culture due to not knowing the language. She faced a difficult pregnancy and "double discrimination" as a foreigner and as a woman; Escapade focuses on her experiences but also shows her keen perceptions about the social conditions for those she met. Professor Salgado reflects on how Brazil was a landscape that informed Scott's writing and also was defining for her "as a woman and as a writer." Congratulations to Maria das Graças Salgado on the publication of Escapada in Brazil!
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Call for Papers for the American Literature Association; Abstracts due January 10, 2020
Call for Papers for the Evelyn Scott Society
American Literature Association 31st Annual Conference
San Diego, CA
May 21 - 24, 2020
Abstracts due January 10, 2020
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 10th, 2020.
American Literature Association 31st Annual Conference
San Diego, CA
May 21 - 24, 2020
Abstracts due January 10, 2020
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 10th, 2020.
Call for Papers for the American Literature Association; Abstracts due January 9, 2019
Call for Papers for the Evelyn Scott Society
American Literature Association 30th Annual Conference
Boston, MA
May 23 - 26, 2019
Abstracts due January 9, 2019
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 9th, 2019.
American Literature Association 30th Annual Conference
Boston, MA
May 23 - 26, 2019
Abstracts due January 9, 2019
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others.
The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction.
Please send abstracts and a curriculum vita to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 9th, 2019.
Evelyn Scott at the Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference, November 7-11, 2018
Society for the Study of American Women Writers Triennial Conference, November 7-11, 2018
Resistance and Recovery across the Americas
The Westin Denver Downtown
1672 Lawrence St., Denver, CO
https://ssawwnew.wordpress.com/2018-conference/
Thursday, November 8, 2018
9-D EVELYN SCOTT AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF GENDER (ORGANIZED BY THE EVELYN SCOTT SOCIETY)
Room: Confluence B
Chair: Paul C. Jones, Ohio University ([email protected])
Organizer: Caroline Maun, Wayne State University ([email protected])
“Quiver under it!”: Sexual Violence, Trauma, and the Haunted City in Evelyn Scott’s Manhattan
Hatley Clifford, West Virginia University ([email protected])
Riding the Wave of New Southern Studies: Evelyn Scott’s Many Affordances for Contemporary Readers
Ruth Trego, University of Miami ([email protected])
“The Long Whisper Under Currents”: Evelyn Scott’s Fusions of Modernism and Romanticism
Caroline Maun, Wayne State University ([email protected])
Resistance and Recovery across the Americas
The Westin Denver Downtown
1672 Lawrence St., Denver, CO
https://ssawwnew.wordpress.com/2018-conference/
Thursday, November 8, 2018
9-D EVELYN SCOTT AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF GENDER (ORGANIZED BY THE EVELYN SCOTT SOCIETY)
Room: Confluence B
Chair: Paul C. Jones, Ohio University ([email protected])
Organizer: Caroline Maun, Wayne State University ([email protected])
“Quiver under it!”: Sexual Violence, Trauma, and the Haunted City in Evelyn Scott’s Manhattan
Hatley Clifford, West Virginia University ([email protected])
Riding the Wave of New Southern Studies: Evelyn Scott’s Many Affordances for Contemporary Readers
Ruth Trego, University of Miami ([email protected])
“The Long Whisper Under Currents”: Evelyn Scott’s Fusions of Modernism and Romanticism
Caroline Maun, Wayne State University ([email protected])
Evelyn Scott: Provocative Modernisms at the American Literature Association 2018
American Literature Association
29th Annual Conference on American Literature
Hyatt Regency San Francisco
5 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111
San Francisco, CA
Session 4-E Evelyn Scott: Provocative Modernisms
Thursday, May 24, 2018
1:30 - 2:50 P.M.
Organized by the Evelyn Scott Society
Chair: Claudia Milstead, University of Northern Colorado
1. "Evelyn Scott's The Wave: Challenging the Patriarchal Pedestal Then and Now," Dawn Gartlehner,
University of Vienna
2. "Birth, Fiesta, and Death: Evelyn Scott's Gaze Upon Brazilian Culture and Society,"
Maria Das Graças Salgado, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
3. “Modernist and Feminist Contexts of Charlotte Wilder’s Poetry,” Caroline Maun, Wayne State University
29th Annual Conference on American Literature
Hyatt Regency San Francisco
5 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111
San Francisco, CA
Session 4-E Evelyn Scott: Provocative Modernisms
Thursday, May 24, 2018
1:30 - 2:50 P.M.
Organized by the Evelyn Scott Society
Chair: Claudia Milstead, University of Northern Colorado
1. "Evelyn Scott's The Wave: Challenging the Patriarchal Pedestal Then and Now," Dawn Gartlehner,
University of Vienna
2. "Birth, Fiesta, and Death: Evelyn Scott's Gaze Upon Brazilian Culture and Society,"
Maria Das Graças Salgado, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
3. “Modernist and Feminist Contexts of Charlotte Wilder’s Poetry,” Caroline Maun, Wayne State University
CFP for the Society for the Study of American Women Writers 2018 Triennial Conference in Denver, Colorado on November 7-11, 2018. Abstracts due 2/9/2018
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963) for the Society for the Study of American Women Writers 2018 Triennial Conference in Denver, Colorado on November 7-11, 2018.
Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, letters, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. Following from the conference theme of “Resistance and Recovery across the Americas,” we are especially interested in papers that explore those themes in Scott’s work and/ or that of her contemporaries. Conference themes include:
• Writing the fight: social justice, resistance, and protest in poetry and prose
• Confronting race, whiteness, invisibility, and labor in women’s writing
• Social and political resistance in American women’s writing
• Resistance to restrictive gender roles in women’s writing
• The role of writing in emotional recovery from systemic oppression
• Memoir as a genre of recovery and resistance
• Periodicals, newspapers, and magazines: women and textual engagement
• Recovering American women’s writing from the archives
Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Kay Boyle, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others. Please send abstracts and a CV to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before February 9th, 2018.
Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, letters, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. Following from the conference theme of “Resistance and Recovery across the Americas,” we are especially interested in papers that explore those themes in Scott’s work and/ or that of her contemporaries. Conference themes include:
• Writing the fight: social justice, resistance, and protest in poetry and prose
• Confronting race, whiteness, invisibility, and labor in women’s writing
• Social and political resistance in American women’s writing
• Resistance to restrictive gender roles in women’s writing
• The role of writing in emotional recovery from systemic oppression
• Memoir as a genre of recovery and resistance
• Periodicals, newspapers, and magazines: women and textual engagement
• Recovering American women’s writing from the archives
Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Kay Boyle, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others. Please send abstracts and a CV to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before February 9th, 2018.
Call for Papers -- 29th Annual American Literature Association: May 24-27, 2018
Evelyn Scott Society -- Abstracts due January 5, 2018
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Kay Boyle, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others. The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction. Please send abstracts and a CV to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 5th, 2018.
The American Literature Association’s 29th annual conference will meet in San Francisco on May 24-27, 2018 (Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend). For further information, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org.
We are continuing with an open topic format in order to welcome the widest participation in our panels. Please share this call for papers with your colleagues, and think about assigning Scott's work in your upcoming classes and encouraging graduate students to pursue research on her work.
The American Literature Association’s 29th annual conference will meet in San Francisco on May 24-27, 2018 (Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend). For further information, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org.
We are continuing with an open topic format in order to welcome the widest participation in our panels. Please share this call for papers with your colleagues, and think about assigning Scott's work in your upcoming classes and encouraging graduate students to pursue research on her work.
Denise Scott Fears launches "A Life in Letters" -- a Blog Devoted to Evelyn Scott
Denise Scott Fears, Evelyn Scott Society Vice President and independent scholar, has launched a blog enriched by the archive of Evelyn Scott's letters that she is currently editing. She has written articles about the stunning discovery that her grandmother was a prominent American modernist writer, the turmoil and terrible costs of Scott's obsessiveness and paranoia for her family, and her own extensive research into who her enigmatic grandmother was. Fears has also launched a companion Facebook account for Evelyn Scott, which can be found at: www.facebook.com/alifeinlettersblog/
A Life in Letters, the blog which currently includes articles on how the story for Fears begins, her decision to embark on archival research to learn more about her grandmother, and general background on Scott and her family, can be found at:
alifeinletters2017.wordpress.com
Please follow Denise Scott Fears's blog to watch her story unfold.
A Life in Letters, the blog which currently includes articles on how the story for Fears begins, her decision to embark on archival research to learn more about her grandmother, and general background on Scott and her family, can be found at:
alifeinletters2017.wordpress.com
Please follow Denise Scott Fears's blog to watch her story unfold.
Evelyn Scott in Context -- Panel at the American Literature Association -- Abstracts
"Evelyn Scott in Context," a panel of presentations, took place at the American Literature Association in Boston, Massachusetts on Thursday, May 25, 2017 from 4:30 - 5:50 p.m. Paper abstracts are reprinted below. The session was historic in that it was the first for the society in ten years and that Denise Scott Fears, Evelyn Scott's granddaughter and independent scholar, presented from her extensive family archive. Special thanks to all who joined us, our panelists, and Professor Paul Jones of Ohio University who introduced us and moderated the panel.
Session 6-C Evelyn Scott in Context
Organized by the Evelyn Scott Society
Chair: Paul C. Jones, Ohio University
1. "Gendered Emotion in Exile: Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay-Scott in Brazil," Maria Das Graças Salgado, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
The American writer Evelyn Scott (née Elsie Dunn) eloped with Cyril Kay-Scott (née Frederick Creighton Wellman) in 1913. At the time she was a southern upper class young woman, and he, also from a southern prominent family, was a physician, married, father of four, and more than twice her senior. Without passports and carrying very little money they fled to Brazil where eventually they made their way to the backlands of Bahia to create a sheep farm. There the couple faced extreme poverty and starvation. The experience was particularly painful for Evelyn Scott. Being a woman, pregnant, foreigner, young and not knowing a word of the local language (Portuguese), the hardship of adaptation in Brazil, especially in Cercadinho, which I refer here as “deep Brazil”, proved to be extreme. As a man and provider, mastering the new language, Cyril Kay-Scott could occupy the many layers of the public sphere. He was thus more exposed to a process of social interaction and could probably find more energy to fight his own suffering. Evelyn, in contrast, was most of the time confined to a domestic space where she felt drowned in ennui and oppressed by gender issues since in the hard new reality she resented the fact that “the women greeted me with hostile eyes, and the men pursued me with their shallow cloying looks” (p.30).
Shortly after arriving in Rio de Janeiro Evelyn Scott began to indicate her first signs of loneliness. Later on, when the couple settled down in deep Brazil Cercadinho, her most radical experience in the Country, she found herself caught in a process of complete isolation and ultimate despair.
Scholars have studied many facets of Evelyn Scott’s work. Some have explored her “fearless artistic vocation” to address social issues through her modern and experimental form (Maun 2012). Others have praised the fine quality of her literary genius, referring to Scapade as a book that is “almost a feminist cri de couer” (Scura, 1995:303). As a prolific literary genius Evelyn Scott wrote many different genres from poetry to autobiographical novels. However, although the critics recognize the high literary quality of Evelyn Scott’s autobiographical writing, she continues to be shockingly little studied. This is particularly so in Brazil, the country where she lived what she describes as the “most profound experience” of her life, and yet there is almost no record of significant research about Escapade, the autobiographical account of that profound experience. In addtion to that, also shockingly, the book remains untranslated into Portuguese to this day.
This work aims to explore aspects of gender and emotion associated with Evelyn Scott’s process of adaptation in her Brazilian “exile” especially in what is referred here as deep Brazil. The analysis is based on her autobiographical novel Escapade whose account reveal important aspect related to her view of “exile” as well as both the American society left behind and the Brazilian society that would surround them in the future.
Regarding the theoretical framework, I approach the concepts of gender, memory, and emotion as historicaly situated discourses shaped by the culture and society within which they are produced. More specifically, we adopt the idea of memory as a defining element of discourse (Pecheux 1984), a socially constructed phenomenon constantly subject to transformation (Halbwachs 1980). It is also important to think of gender as discourse, that is a practice that defines gender roles through language use as a creative process that expose both male and female users to constant possibilities of negotiation (Cameron 1980). Regarding emotion, I follow Abu-Lughod and Lutz (1990), for whom emotion should be viewed as a discursive practice, an operator of social activity shaped by culture. In other words a language that can communicate not only feelings but also questions such as social conflicts, gender roles and power relations. As for the concept of exile, the idea that in general, any person who is prevented from returning home can be considered an exiled is particularly interesting. So is the notion of physical exile as an experience that should be viewed as an unhealing wound and sadness between a person and his/her homeland (Said 2000).
Primary source:
SCOTT, Evelyn. Escapade. Afterward by Dorothy M. Scura. Charlottesville and London, University Press of Virginia, 1995.
References
Abu-Lughod, Lila. & Lutz, Catherine. (orgs.) Language and the politics of emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Bach, Peggy. “Evelyn Scott: 1920-1988.” Bulletin of Bibliography 46.2 (1989): 76-91.
Callard, D. A. “Pretty Good for a Woman”: The Enigmas of Evelyn Scott. New York: Norton, 1985.
Cameron, Deborah. Feminism and Linguistic Theory. London: Macmillan, 1985.
Halbwachs, Maurice, The collective memory, New York, Harper & Row Colophon Books, 1980.
Kay-Scott, Cyril. Life is too short. Philadelphia, New York, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1943.
Maun, Caroline. Mosaic of fire: the work of Lola Ridge, Evelyn Scott, Charlotte Wilder and Kay Boyle. South Caroline, University of South Caroline Press, 2012.
Pêcheux, Michel. Role de La memoire. In: MALDIDIER, Denise. Histoire et Linguistique. Paris, Editions de La Maison des Sciences de l ́Homme, 1984.
Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 2000.
2. "From Southern Belle to Modernist Woman Writer: Evelyn scott, Estelle Faulkner, and Zelda Fitzgerald," Maggie Gordon Froehlich, Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald has received a small amount of critical attention as a writer--usually peripherally, as a foil to the famous husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom she collaborated and competed, but also, for a brief period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, from feminist literary critics; the fact that Estelle Oldham Franklin Faulkner, wife of William Faulkner, wrote at all, on the other hand, was unknown to scholars until Judith L. Sensibar's important 2009 biography. Despite a role as a literary figure in the 1920s and 30s, Caroline Maun has noted that Evelyn Scott “continues even now to be one of the most overlooked authors in American literature” (134). In highlighting intriguing similarities and important differences in these women’s personal lives and artistic careers, I hope offer enhanced appreciation for these women as both modernist artists and as southern women writers.
Remarkably, Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-1948), Estelle Faulkner (1896-1972), and Evelyn Scott (1893-1963) share the extraordinary experience of having been raised as belles in the American South -- Zelda Sayre in Alabama, Estelle Oldham in Mississippi, and Evelyn Scott (Elsie Dunn) in Tennessee -- and then living abroad during the 1910s and 20s -- Fitzgerald in Europe, Estelle Oldham Franklin (as she was known during her first marriage) in Asia, and Evelyn in South America). Their writing and, for Fitzgerald and Faulkner, painting, as well, reflects the experimentation in style characteristic of the era.
Most scholars of American literature have a general familiarity with the conventional narratives of the Faulkner and Fitzgerald marriages; Evelyn Scott, on the other hand, while less publicly known to scholars and general readers today, was a more successful experiences and writing career. Bringing Scott’s, Faulkner’s, and Fitzgerald’s biographies and writing into conversation with one another, my work seeks to contribute to the “recovery” of the lives and art of three southern American women writers of the Modernist period.
Works
Maun, Caroline. Mosaic of Fire: The Work of Lola Ridge, Evelyn Scott, Charlotte Wilder, and Kay Boyle. Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina P, 2012. Print.
3. "Evelyn Scott: Her Family Context," Denise Scott Fears, Independent Scholar
Knowing the family story of an author can enhance understanding of his or her work. The published biographies of Evelyn Scott include much of her intellectual development and her links with other literary figures, but relatively little of her personal and family story and its influence on her life and her work.
As her granddaughter, I have access to materials that have, until now, only been in the family. This illustrated talk will place Evelyn’s story in the context of her travels, her two husbands, her friendships, her relationship with her only son and her deteriorating mental health, ending with her death in poverty and obscurity, buried in an unmarked grave.
4. "The Transitional Poetics of The Winter Alone," Caroline Maun, Wayne State University
If we are to take Scott’s directive to read her volume of poetry, The Winter Alone, as autobiography, what intervention does the volume make in our understanding of her life? Where did she find challenge and where did she find comfort? What comprised for her the lyric urge? In my reading, the most prominent motivation for the poetry of this period is not to be part of an avant garde movement, not to establish herself in a particular current of writing of poetry, but to use the powers of observation and the emotional responses that landscapes, situations, people, or animals evoked to record that energy of engagement. The Winter Alone is comprised of poems that did key emotional work for her by recording moments of near-peace, spaces that opened for keen observation, and meditations on death, whether it be in the natural course of things or as a metaphor for the end of relationships. These observations point toward the need for a more sustained look at The Winter Alone beyond apologizing for its not aligning with mainstream aesthetic expectations.
Session 6-C Evelyn Scott in Context
Organized by the Evelyn Scott Society
Chair: Paul C. Jones, Ohio University
1. "Gendered Emotion in Exile: Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay-Scott in Brazil," Maria Das Graças Salgado, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
The American writer Evelyn Scott (née Elsie Dunn) eloped with Cyril Kay-Scott (née Frederick Creighton Wellman) in 1913. At the time she was a southern upper class young woman, and he, also from a southern prominent family, was a physician, married, father of four, and more than twice her senior. Without passports and carrying very little money they fled to Brazil where eventually they made their way to the backlands of Bahia to create a sheep farm. There the couple faced extreme poverty and starvation. The experience was particularly painful for Evelyn Scott. Being a woman, pregnant, foreigner, young and not knowing a word of the local language (Portuguese), the hardship of adaptation in Brazil, especially in Cercadinho, which I refer here as “deep Brazil”, proved to be extreme. As a man and provider, mastering the new language, Cyril Kay-Scott could occupy the many layers of the public sphere. He was thus more exposed to a process of social interaction and could probably find more energy to fight his own suffering. Evelyn, in contrast, was most of the time confined to a domestic space where she felt drowned in ennui and oppressed by gender issues since in the hard new reality she resented the fact that “the women greeted me with hostile eyes, and the men pursued me with their shallow cloying looks” (p.30).
Shortly after arriving in Rio de Janeiro Evelyn Scott began to indicate her first signs of loneliness. Later on, when the couple settled down in deep Brazil Cercadinho, her most radical experience in the Country, she found herself caught in a process of complete isolation and ultimate despair.
Scholars have studied many facets of Evelyn Scott’s work. Some have explored her “fearless artistic vocation” to address social issues through her modern and experimental form (Maun 2012). Others have praised the fine quality of her literary genius, referring to Scapade as a book that is “almost a feminist cri de couer” (Scura, 1995:303). As a prolific literary genius Evelyn Scott wrote many different genres from poetry to autobiographical novels. However, although the critics recognize the high literary quality of Evelyn Scott’s autobiographical writing, she continues to be shockingly little studied. This is particularly so in Brazil, the country where she lived what she describes as the “most profound experience” of her life, and yet there is almost no record of significant research about Escapade, the autobiographical account of that profound experience. In addtion to that, also shockingly, the book remains untranslated into Portuguese to this day.
This work aims to explore aspects of gender and emotion associated with Evelyn Scott’s process of adaptation in her Brazilian “exile” especially in what is referred here as deep Brazil. The analysis is based on her autobiographical novel Escapade whose account reveal important aspect related to her view of “exile” as well as both the American society left behind and the Brazilian society that would surround them in the future.
Regarding the theoretical framework, I approach the concepts of gender, memory, and emotion as historicaly situated discourses shaped by the culture and society within which they are produced. More specifically, we adopt the idea of memory as a defining element of discourse (Pecheux 1984), a socially constructed phenomenon constantly subject to transformation (Halbwachs 1980). It is also important to think of gender as discourse, that is a practice that defines gender roles through language use as a creative process that expose both male and female users to constant possibilities of negotiation (Cameron 1980). Regarding emotion, I follow Abu-Lughod and Lutz (1990), for whom emotion should be viewed as a discursive practice, an operator of social activity shaped by culture. In other words a language that can communicate not only feelings but also questions such as social conflicts, gender roles and power relations. As for the concept of exile, the idea that in general, any person who is prevented from returning home can be considered an exiled is particularly interesting. So is the notion of physical exile as an experience that should be viewed as an unhealing wound and sadness between a person and his/her homeland (Said 2000).
Primary source:
SCOTT, Evelyn. Escapade. Afterward by Dorothy M. Scura. Charlottesville and London, University Press of Virginia, 1995.
References
Abu-Lughod, Lila. & Lutz, Catherine. (orgs.) Language and the politics of emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Bach, Peggy. “Evelyn Scott: 1920-1988.” Bulletin of Bibliography 46.2 (1989): 76-91.
Callard, D. A. “Pretty Good for a Woman”: The Enigmas of Evelyn Scott. New York: Norton, 1985.
Cameron, Deborah. Feminism and Linguistic Theory. London: Macmillan, 1985.
Halbwachs, Maurice, The collective memory, New York, Harper & Row Colophon Books, 1980.
Kay-Scott, Cyril. Life is too short. Philadelphia, New York, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1943.
Maun, Caroline. Mosaic of fire: the work of Lola Ridge, Evelyn Scott, Charlotte Wilder and Kay Boyle. South Caroline, University of South Caroline Press, 2012.
Pêcheux, Michel. Role de La memoire. In: MALDIDIER, Denise. Histoire et Linguistique. Paris, Editions de La Maison des Sciences de l ́Homme, 1984.
Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 2000.
2. "From Southern Belle to Modernist Woman Writer: Evelyn scott, Estelle Faulkner, and Zelda Fitzgerald," Maggie Gordon Froehlich, Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald has received a small amount of critical attention as a writer--usually peripherally, as a foil to the famous husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom she collaborated and competed, but also, for a brief period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, from feminist literary critics; the fact that Estelle Oldham Franklin Faulkner, wife of William Faulkner, wrote at all, on the other hand, was unknown to scholars until Judith L. Sensibar's important 2009 biography. Despite a role as a literary figure in the 1920s and 30s, Caroline Maun has noted that Evelyn Scott “continues even now to be one of the most overlooked authors in American literature” (134). In highlighting intriguing similarities and important differences in these women’s personal lives and artistic careers, I hope offer enhanced appreciation for these women as both modernist artists and as southern women writers.
Remarkably, Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-1948), Estelle Faulkner (1896-1972), and Evelyn Scott (1893-1963) share the extraordinary experience of having been raised as belles in the American South -- Zelda Sayre in Alabama, Estelle Oldham in Mississippi, and Evelyn Scott (Elsie Dunn) in Tennessee -- and then living abroad during the 1910s and 20s -- Fitzgerald in Europe, Estelle Oldham Franklin (as she was known during her first marriage) in Asia, and Evelyn in South America). Their writing and, for Fitzgerald and Faulkner, painting, as well, reflects the experimentation in style characteristic of the era.
Most scholars of American literature have a general familiarity with the conventional narratives of the Faulkner and Fitzgerald marriages; Evelyn Scott, on the other hand, while less publicly known to scholars and general readers today, was a more successful experiences and writing career. Bringing Scott’s, Faulkner’s, and Fitzgerald’s biographies and writing into conversation with one another, my work seeks to contribute to the “recovery” of the lives and art of three southern American women writers of the Modernist period.
Works
Maun, Caroline. Mosaic of Fire: The Work of Lola Ridge, Evelyn Scott, Charlotte Wilder, and Kay Boyle. Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina P, 2012. Print.
3. "Evelyn Scott: Her Family Context," Denise Scott Fears, Independent Scholar
Knowing the family story of an author can enhance understanding of his or her work. The published biographies of Evelyn Scott include much of her intellectual development and her links with other literary figures, but relatively little of her personal and family story and its influence on her life and her work.
As her granddaughter, I have access to materials that have, until now, only been in the family. This illustrated talk will place Evelyn’s story in the context of her travels, her two husbands, her friendships, her relationship with her only son and her deteriorating mental health, ending with her death in poverty and obscurity, buried in an unmarked grave.
4. "The Transitional Poetics of The Winter Alone," Caroline Maun, Wayne State University
If we are to take Scott’s directive to read her volume of poetry, The Winter Alone, as autobiography, what intervention does the volume make in our understanding of her life? Where did she find challenge and where did she find comfort? What comprised for her the lyric urge? In my reading, the most prominent motivation for the poetry of this period is not to be part of an avant garde movement, not to establish herself in a particular current of writing of poetry, but to use the powers of observation and the emotional responses that landscapes, situations, people, or animals evoked to record that energy of engagement. The Winter Alone is comprised of poems that did key emotional work for her by recording moments of near-peace, spaces that opened for keen observation, and meditations on death, whether it be in the natural course of things or as a metaphor for the end of relationships. These observations point toward the need for a more sustained look at The Winter Alone beyond apologizing for its not aligning with mainstream aesthetic expectations.
Evelyn Scott in Context -- Evelyn Scott Society Panel at the American Literature Association, 2017
The Evelyn Scott Society is very pleased to announce "Evelyn Scott in Context," a panel of presentations that will take place at the American Literature Association in Boston, Massachusetts on Thursday, May 25, 2017 from 4:30 - 5:50 p.m.
Session 6-C Evelyn Scott in Context
Organized by the Evelyn Scott Society
Chair: Paul C. Jones, Ohio University
1. "Gendered Emotion in Exile: Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay-Scott in Brazil," Maria Das Graças Salgado, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
2. "From Southern Belle to Modernist Woman Writer: Evelyn scott, Estelle Faulkner, and Zelda Fitzgerald," Maggie Gordon Froehlich, Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton
3. "Evelyn scott: Her Family Context," Denise Scott Fears, Independent Scholar
4. "The Transitional Poetics of The Winter Alone," Caroline Maun, Wayne State University
The American Literature Association Conference is taking place from May 25th - 28th at the Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Ave., in Boston. More information about the conference is available at the American Literature Association website:
americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/programs/
We are extremely pleased this session is hosted this year by the American Literature Association and includes prominent scholars from the U.S. and abroad doing current work on Scott. Please consider attending this historic panel that includes Denise Scott Fears, Evelyn Scott Society Vice-President, editor of Scott's selected letters, and Scott's granddaughter.
Session 6-C Evelyn Scott in Context
Organized by the Evelyn Scott Society
Chair: Paul C. Jones, Ohio University
1. "Gendered Emotion in Exile: Evelyn Scott and Cyril Kay-Scott in Brazil," Maria Das Graças Salgado, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
2. "From Southern Belle to Modernist Woman Writer: Evelyn scott, Estelle Faulkner, and Zelda Fitzgerald," Maggie Gordon Froehlich, Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton
3. "Evelyn scott: Her Family Context," Denise Scott Fears, Independent Scholar
4. "The Transitional Poetics of The Winter Alone," Caroline Maun, Wayne State University
The American Literature Association Conference is taking place from May 25th - 28th at the Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Ave., in Boston. More information about the conference is available at the American Literature Association website:
americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/programs/
We are extremely pleased this session is hosted this year by the American Literature Association and includes prominent scholars from the U.S. and abroad doing current work on Scott. Please consider attending this historic panel that includes Denise Scott Fears, Evelyn Scott Society Vice-President, editor of Scott's selected letters, and Scott's granddaughter.
Current Calls for Papers
Evelyn Scott: Open Call for Papers, Evelyn Scott Society; American Literature Association 2017, CFP due January 6th, 2017
contact email:
caroline.maun@wayne edu
28th Annual American Literature Association Conference
May 25-28, 2017
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others. The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction. Please send abstracts and a CV to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 6th, 2017.
contact email:
caroline.maun@wayne edu
28th Annual American Literature Association Conference
May 25-28, 2017
The Evelyn Scott Society invites abstracts of 1-2 pages on the American writer Evelyn Scott (1893-1963). Papers may focus on any of her works (novels, memoir, poetry, young adult literature), and they may take any contemporary critical approach. We are especially interested in papers that investigate the process of canonicity, the literary networks to which Scott belonged, or the role of disability in her career, but all topics will be considered. Scott participated in various and major literary currents during her writing life, including Imagism, naturalism, and modernism, and she had a wide variety of literary mentors, including Lola Ridge, Theodore Dreiser, Waldo Frank, William Carlos Williams, and Jean Rhys, among others. The range of her work within these currents was wide, and included lyric poetry, modernist novels, an avant garde memoir, historical fiction, and political fiction. Please send abstracts and a CV to Caroline Maun at [email protected] on or before January 6th, 2017.
Evelyn Scott Society Member Niall Munro: Recent Visit to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
Dr. Niall Munro, Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Oxford Brookes University, was a fellow at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in 2015. He is working on a book titled, "Our Only 'Felt' History: American Modernism and the Civil War." He writes about his research in the Evelyn Scott Collection in an entry for the HRHRC's Cultural Compass newsletter. You can read more about Dr. Munro and his work here: Cultural Compass.