Call for Papers

The Society for the Study of American Literary Naturalism

American Literature Association 35^th Annual Conference

May 23-26, 2024

Chicago, IL

The Frank Norris Society, The Jack London Society, the Stephen Crane Society, and the Theodore Dreiser Society have united for the American Literature Association into the Society for the Study of American Literary Naturalism.

The Society for the Study of American Literary Naturalism will sponsor multiple sessions at the 2023 American Literature Association Conference.  While we are open to any topic related to the works of Norris, London, Crane, or Dreiser, we are also open to considerations of other authors—either in the traditional naturalist period or in any time after—embracing or working within a broadly defined “naturalist ethos.”  

Send proposals of 200-250 words for a 20 minute papers/presentations by January 15 to:  Adam H. Wood, Valdosta State University at adwood@valdosta.edu

Email proposals only.

Provide contact information including email, address, and academic affiliation.

The Society for the Study of American Literary Naturalism is also pairing with the American Religion and Society this year to co-sponsor a panel on American Literary Naturalism and Religion.

Canonical and noncanonical American naturalists evinced a complex and ongoing interest in religious matters. For this panel, jointly organized by the Frank Norris Society and the American Religion and Literature Society, we invite scholars to examine American literary naturalism’s engagement with religious ideas and practices. The intersection of American literary naturalism and religion presents a rich area for exploration, offering scholars the opportunity to analyze how authors understood the relationship between the deterministic forces of nature and the religious dimensions of American life. 

Potential approaches include but are not limited to:

Reevaluation of Naturalist Assumptions – Authors could investigate how American literary naturalism challenges or reinforces traditional religious beliefs, analyzing the ways naturalist narratives engage with questions of morality, free will, and the existence of divinity.

Explore the Religious Dimensions in Naturalist Texts – Authors could examine the presence of religious themes, motifs, and symbolism in naturalistic works, considering how authors negotiated the tension between deterministic natural forces and the religious aspects of human experience.

Authorial Perspectives on Religion – Authors could investigate the beliefs of naturalist authors, exploring how figures such as Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Frank Norris, and Upton Sinclair grapple with or embrace religious ideas in their work.

Comparative Analysis – Authors could compare American literary naturalism with religious texts or explore parallels with religious narratives from other cultural traditions, examining how naturalist perspectives intersect with or diverge from other religious worldviews.

Examine Social and Cultural Contexts – Authors could explore the impact of social and cultural change on the portrayal of religion in American naturalism, investigating how issues such as industrialization, urbanization, and scientific advancements influenced the depiction of religious beliefs in naturalist literature.

Evolution and Religion – Authors could examine how authors engage with religious concepts and practices in the context of evolutionary science, exploring the ways religious ideas are reinterpreted, challenged, or reaffirmed in the face of evolutionary theory. Authors could consider how authors negotiated the tensions between religious faith and the scientific understanding of evolution.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words by January 15. Please include a brief biography and contact information. Submissions should be sent to Andrew Ball at andrew_ball@emerson.edu.

Donald Pizer, a widely known and respected scholar of American literature and professor of English at Tulane University for more than 40 years, died on November 7, 2023 at the age of 94.

Pizer was the only child of Morris Pizer, a union official, and Helen (Rosenfeld) Pizer, a fur worker. He was born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn until 1947 when, after graduating from high school, he and his mother moved to Los Angeles. He received his B.A. (1951), M.A. (1952), and Ph. D. (1955), all from U.C.L.A., and served in the US Army from 1955 to 1957. He then joined the English Department at Newcomb College, Tulane University, as an assistant professor. In 1966, he married Carol Hart. He is survived by her, their three daughters (Karin, Ann, and Margaret), and four grandchildren.

Pizer concentrated for much of his career on late 19th and early 20th century American naturalism, a literary movement that included such figures as Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and John Dos Passos. He published many articles and over 40 books, both critical studies and editions, devoted to these writers individually and to the movement as a whole. His work played a leading role in shifting critical emphasis in interpreting America naturalism from its conventionally held position as a weak offshoot of French naturalism to being seen as a distinctly American phenomenon, with its roots in American experience and values. He was widely regarded as the nation’s principal scholar of the movement and its writers. 

Pizer was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1962; his many other awards include senior fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities and three Fulbright lectureships at European universities. He was a member of the editorial boards of many professional journals and often was a guest lecturer at American and European universities, including Cambridge, Heidelberg, and Leiden. At Tulane, he directed the Ph.D. dissertations of over 30 graduate students and in 1970 was appointed to the endowed Pierce Butler chair in English. He retired from teaching at Tulane in 2001 but continued his research and writing for many years.

Pizer’s army service included a year living in London. He developed a taste for English life and later returned to the area near Hampstead Heath many times for summers with his family and when on sabbatical leave. He was equally fond of his adopted home of New Orleans, where he lived for over 65 years.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.LeitzEaganFuneralHome.com for the family.

View obituary here.

Frank Norris Society at the American Literature Association!

Call for Papers

The Frank Norris Society will sponsor two panels at the 2022 American Literature Association Conference

Panel I: Any Topic Related to Frank Norris and his works

Panel II: Any Topic Related to American Literary Naturalism as Broadly Defined

May 25-28, 2023

Boston, MA

Send proposals of 200-250 words for a 20 minute papers/presentations by January 20 to:

Adam H. Wood

Valdosta State University

adwood@valdosta.edu

Email proposals only

Provide contact information including email, address, and academic affiliation

ALA 2022 Call for Papers

The Frank Norris Society will sponsor two sessions at the American Literature Association Conference at the Westin Copley Place in Chicago, IL, on May 26-29, 2022

Session One: Frank Norris — Papers on any topic related to Frank Norris and his works

Session Two: American Literary Naturalism — Any topic related to American Literary Naturalism as broadly defined

• Send proposals of 200-250 words for a 20 minute papers/presentations by January 14 to Adam H. Wood at adwood@valdosta.edu

• Email proposals only

• Provide contact information including email, address, and academic affiliation

For further information about the conference, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliteratureassociation.org. If you have specific questions, you may contact the conference director and Executive Coordinator of the ALA, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield of Georgia Southern University at carr@georgiasouthern.edu or the Executive Director of the ALA, Professor Alfred Bendixen, at ab23@princeton.edu.

Call for proposals

The Nonhuman in American Literary Naturalism

Editors: Kenneth K Brandt and Karin M Danielsson

At the end of the 19^th century, American authors such as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London were influenced by new advances in science—notably the idea of evolution. Nature and the nonhuman were crucial for these writers, whom scholars   most often group under the rubric of American literary naturalists. Traditional scholarship on American literary naturalism has closely attended to various environmental pressures in urban and wilderness settings, but scholars have paid much less attention to the naturalists’ investigations into the nonhuman, such as animals, plants, landscapes, houses, or weather. To extend and deepen our understanding of this under-researched field, we propose a volume of essays that offers a wide variety of innovative critical approaches to the nonhuman in American naturalist literature. We welcome studies based in ecocriticism, animal studies, new materialism, narrative theory, or ethics. We are receptive to essay proposals focused on the core naturalists from around 1900 as well as more contemporary writers in the naturalist tradition. Proposals may focus on authors including Crane, Norris, London, Wharton, Garland, Dreiser, Chopin, Dunbar, Sinclair, Twain, Glasgow, Frederic, Cather, O’Neill, Steinbeck, Wright, Hemingway, Petry, Dos Passos, Larsen, Farrell, Hammett, Cain and others. More recent writers may include Oates, Vonnegut, DeLillo, Morrison, McCarthy, Wilson, Pynchon, and others.

Possible topic areas might include but are not limited to:

• Animal agency  
• Anthropomorphism
• Nonhuman sentience
• Ecology
• Ethology
• Evolution
• Farming
• Forests, trees, plants
• Houses and other structures
• Human–nonhuman intersubjectivity
• Landscape and place
• Physical or environmental transformations
• Posthumanism
• Speciesism
• Technology’s intersections with the nonhuman
• Weather and climate
• Wild, feral, and domestic nonhumans

The Lexington Books Ecocritical Theory and Practice series editor has expressed a strong interest in the project and has requested a full proposal. It is the publisher’s wish that authors or at least one co-author holds a PhD.

We invite essay proposals of a maximum of 500 words on any topic relating to the nonhuman in American literary naturalism by the deadline of the 8 January 2021. Please include a title, a maximum of five key words, and a brief biography. We aim to reply to respondents by 25 February 2021, and full drafts of essays (5000–8000 words) will be due 1 September 2021. Please send a 500-word maximum proposal and a brief biography to karin.molander.danielsson@mdh.se and kbrandt@scad.edu by 8 January, 2021.

Frank Norris’s In Memoriam (San Francisco)

The Frank Norris Society is saying “Thank you!” to Al Magary, a native San Franciscan and fan of The Octopus, who recently shared with us an image of Frank Norris’s In Memoriam, located in the South aisle of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco.

A Letter from the President: New Leadership for the Frank Norris Society

Dear Colleagues,

For about fifteen years, Steve Frye and I have been at the helm of the Frank Norris Society.  It has been an honor to continue the work of the society that had been anchored by Joseph McElrath and Jesse Crisler for many years, and although Steve and I could not fill their very large shoes, it was a great pleasure to do what we could to make sure the Norris society remained a vehicle for ongoing scholarship of Frank Norris and American literary naturalism.  I want to personally thank Steve for all of his help over the years, and I want to thank all of the many Norris scholars who gave excellent papers at the panels sponsored by the society at the annual American Literature Association Conference.  We also want to thank all of the contributors who helped make ALN: The American Literary Naturalism Newsletter a great little journal during its 10-issue run.

Now, I’m very pleased to announce that new leadership is taking the helm of the society.  Starting now, Dr. Adam Wood of Salisbury University will be taking on the role of President of the Frank Norris Society, and Hannah Huber of the University of South Carolina will be taking over the role of Vice President.  Hannah, as you all know, has been serving as Executive Coordinator of the society for several years, and Steve and I will be eternally grateful for all of her help these past few years.  Adam and Hannah are outstanding colleagues—as all of you who have met and worked with them know—and Steve and I are thrilled to know that the society is in great hands going forward.  We are grateful for their service, and we are truly glad to know that not only will the society’s work continue into the future, but that the society will be in even better hands.  The future continues to be bright for the study of American literary naturalism . . .

Please join me in welcoming the new leadership team, and thanks for allowing me and Steve the great privilege to lead the society for so many years.

Naturally,

Eric Carl Link

President, The Frank Norris Society

Announcing Frank Norris Society Panel, ALA 2019

The Frank Norris Society is happy to announce that it will sponsor a panel at this year’s American Literature Association’s 30th Annual Conference in San Francisco, which will be held May 23rd to the 26th.

Panel: American Literary Naturalism

Chair: Adam Wood, Salisbury University

1. “’I don’t belong here’: Nella Larsen and Claude McKay as Innovators of Literary Naturalism,” John Dudley, University of South Dakota
2. “Deviant Spaces: Sex, Art, and the Home in Frank Norris’ Vandover and the Brute,” Nicole de Fee, Louisiana Tech University

ALA 2019 Call for Papers

The Frank Norris Society will sponsor two sessions at the 30th American Literature Association Conference at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, MA, on May 23-27, 2019

Session One: Frank Norris
Papers on any aspect of Frank Norris’s work or life will be considered.

Session Two: American Literary Naturalism
Broader treatments of American literary naturalism (whether directly related to Frank Norris or not) will be considered.

Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes.

Please email abstracts or papers of no more than ten double-spaced pages by January 15, 2019, to the program chair, Professor Eric Carl Link, at eric.link@ipfw.edu.

For further information about the conference, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliteratureassociation.org. If you have specific questions, you may contact the conference director and Executive Coordinator of the ALA, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield of Georgia Southern University at carr@georgiasouthern.edu or the Executive Director of the ALA, Professor Alfred Bendixen, at ab23@princeton.edu.

The ALA 2018 Program Posted

The program for this year’s American Literature Association Conference in San Diego (May 24-27 2018) has been posted. Click here to check it out! 

Here is a listing of the FNS-sponsored events:

Thursday, May 24, 10:30 – 11:50 am 
[Session 2-B] Frank Norris
Chair: Eric Carl Link, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
1. “Looking at ‘Wheat’ in the Blink of an Eye,” Toby Widdicombe, University of Alaska Anchorage
2. “Design for Determinism: Norris, Nansen, and A Man’s Woman,” Patti Luedecke, Western University Ontario
3. “An Octopus of Data: Cyberspace and the Golden Spike,” Zach Mann, University of Southern California

Thursday, May 24, 3:00 – 4:20 pm
[Session 5-B] Frank Norris’s McTeague: New Perspectives
Chair: Steve Frye, California State University Bakersfield
1. “’Bottled Lightning’: McTeague and the Gospel of Relaxation,” Jeffrey W. Miller, Gonzaga University
2. “Scales of Force and Power in Frank Norris and N. K. Jemisin,” Chuck Robinson, University of Nevada Reno
3. “’Spit ut out’: The Role of Dialect in Frank Norris’s McTeague,” Scott Shumaker, University of Nevada Reno

Thursday, May 24, 4:30 – 5:50 pm
[Session 6-B] Literary Naturalism and Social Protest: A Roundtable Discussion
Moderator: Eric Carl Link, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Panelists:
– Donna Campbell, Washington State University
– Anita Duneer, Rhode Island College
– Steve Frye, California State University Bakersfield
– Lauren Navarro, LaGuardia Community College
– Keith Newlin, University of North Carolina Wilmington
– Jeanne Reesman, University of Texas San Antonio
– Adam Wood, Salisbury University