Opens at the Huntington Oct. 24: Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles

A new exhibition focusing on the extraordinary artistic, cultural, and intellectual expressions and accomplishments of African Americans in Los Angeles will open at the Huntington Oct. 24, 2009.  Titled, “Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles,” the exhibition will include material from both The Huntington and the Mayme A. Clayton Library, a new cultural and education institution founded by Avery Clayton to house and make available his mother’s extraordinary collection of African Americana gathered during her 40-year career as a librarian in Los Angeles.  The show will continue until Jan. 4, 2010.

For more information, click here.

 

Press Release, Boom: A Journal of California University of California Press

Boom: A Journal of California
9/22/2009

September 22, 2009, Berkeley, CA–University of California Press, the not-for-profit publishing arm of the University of California, is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of Boom: A Journal of California.

Written in a scholarly but accessible fashion, Boom is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal, which aims to create a dialog about the vital social, cultural, and political issues of our time. Thoughtful, provocative, and at times playful, Boom speaks not only to the scholarly community but also to the broader public, in California and beyond.

Headed by Editors Carolyn de la Peña, Associate Professor of American Studies at UC Davis and Director of the Davis Humanities Institute, and Louis Warren, UC Davis’ W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History, the journal will include a wide range of works, including two to three scholarly articles forming the gravitational center of each issue, and setting the foundation for other shorter, often informal works.

“One in eight residents of the U.S. lives in California, and the state has become an unprecedented cultural, economic, and political force in the U.S. and abroad. And yet, no journal has explored the origins and meaning of today’s California in an interdisciplinary and intellectual way. With Boom, we aim to fix that,” said Louis Warren, Boom co-editor.

And according to de la Peña, “To truly grapple with the crisis facing California, we have to gather new knowledge about who we are, how we got here, and what common ground can be built for the future. By featuring the work of researchers in multiple fields and combining that with community voices, we believe Boom will uncover fresh perspectives on the state we’re in.”

Contributions will be made by scholars from within the University of California community, from other universities, as well as by independent scholars, writers, journalists, photographers, and researchers. In addition to a wide range of topical writings in each issue, each year a single, special issue–an outgrowth of a companion annual conference–will assess timely matters of relevance to the state and with global implications.

The first issue of Boom will publish in February 2011 both in print and online.

Boom is supported in part by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. “We are deeply grateful to the Mellon Foundation for fostering scholarship in California Studies at this critical moment,” said Lynne Withey, Director of University of California Press.

Few places inspire such a wide range of profound emotions as California. Boom: A Journal of California will harness and direct this passion towards a deeper understanding of the state, its past and future, and role in the wider world.

Click here to download this release as a PDF.

 

Julia Stein at the LaborFest BookFair

CSA steering committee member Julia Stein will appear on two panels at the LaborFest BookFair, Sunday July 26 at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco.  Here’s the scoop from the LaborFest website, which has all the program information.

1:00 PM Poets and Musicians
Poets Avotcja, Julia Stein, Alice Rogoff, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and others.

2:30 PM Panel Discussion

Women Organizers During the 1930s & 1940’s
With Elisabeth Martinez, Julia Stein, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and others.
Women workers during the depression and the 1930’s and 1940’s were battling for justice and survival. This panel will discuss who some of these women workers were and what they did to build the labor movement.

 

More obits for Jim Houston

The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times also ran inciteful obituaries for Jim Houston.

 

Jim Houston, Past Recipient of the CSA Carey McWilliams Award, Dies

The CSA notes the passing of a friend and colleague, James Houston. The following article appeared in the SF Chronicle on Friday, April 24.

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In one of Mr. Houston’s most lauded novels, 2001’s “Snow Mountain Passage,” he wrote poignantly of the Donner Party’s famous deadly journey through the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-47, focusing particularly on one family’s survival to become California pioneers.

So it was only fitting that when Mr. Houston knew cancer was about to claim him, he asked that his final hours be spent in his Santa Cruz home – a home that, years before, had been the place where Patty Reed Lewis, a member of that same Donner Party family he wrote about, spent her final hours as well.

“Jim had a really strong link to that place, and it was very special that he made it back there for his passing,” said Santa Cruz writer Geoffrey Dunn, a longtime friend. “He got to die there surrounded by family and friends.”

And, most fittingly, history.

Mr. Houston died April 16 at age 75.

For the past 40 years, he has been considered one of the foremost chroniclers – in both fiction and nonfiction – of the heartbeat and zeitgeist of America west of the Rockies, and its link to Hawaii and the rest of the Pacific Rim.

“Farewell to Manzanar,” the book he wrote with wife Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston in 1973, has become a staple of school reading lists. It chronicles Wakatsuki Houston’s wrenching time in the Manzanar Japanese American internment camp east of the Sierra during World War II. The book earned the couple the Humanitas Prize and opened people’s eyes to a view of the camps that they had not known before.

“Californians: Searching for the Golden State,” Mr. Houston’s account of traveling the state to understand it, and “Continental Drift,” his novel about a family living above the San Andreas Fault, helped portray the mind-set of California as few other works have. Similar insights came in his explorations of the Pacific Rim in the nonfiction “In the Ring of Fire” as well as his documentary films about Hawaii including, “The Hawaiian Way.”

Among Mr. Houston’s many commendations were two American Book Awards and an Emmy nomination for the film version of “Manzanar.”

Born and reared in San Francisco, Mr. Houston met his wife while earning a bachelor’s degree in dramatic arts at San Jose State in 1956 – an interest he continued to develop all his life as he played guitar in local folk and bluegrass bands. After serving three years in the U.S. Air Force, he earned a master’s degree in American literature at Stanford University, where he studied with Western writer Wallace Stegner.

As a teacher over the past 40 years at many campuses, including Stanford, UC Santa Cruz and San Jose State, Mr. Houston also helped nurture generations of writers. He brought the same nurturing approach to raising his children, in a very Western way.

“My dad taught me so many things that in retrospect I see prepared me to go out into the world and be independent,” said his daughter, Corinne Houston of Santa Cruz. “He showed me how to fix a flat, how to set a gopher trap in an organic garden … that’s the way he was. Very hands-on. He wanted me to be self-sufficient.”

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Houston is survived by a son and another daughter, Joshua Houston of Honolulu and Gabrielle Houston Neville of Santa Cruz.

Services will be Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at Chaminade Resort, Santa Cruz, 1 Chaminade Lane, Santa Cruz. Memorial contributions can be sent to: Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, P.O. Box 1416, Nevada City, CA 95959.

E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

 

“Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, History, and Prints” – Tom Killion & Gary Snyder at Book Passage in Marin, April 28

Artist Tom Killion and poet Gary Snyder give a visual presentation and discuss Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, History, and Prints at Book Passage in Marin on April 28, at 7:00 p.m. The work explores Mt. Tamalpais’ natural, cultural, historic, and spiritual dimensions. “It is a book shaped by two master craftsmen collaborating on an enterprise nurtured by long and passionate involvement.” (from the Book Passage announcement).

Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA 94925
Phone: (415) 927-0960

April 28, 2009, 7:00 pm

 

Zócalo at the Hammer: John Fante’s 100th Birthday; April 7

The Zocalo at the Hammer series will present a program to commemorate the centennial of John Fante’s birth on April 7, 2009, at 7:00 p.m. at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.  From the Hammer’s announcement:

John Fante is a quintessential Los Angeles writer who penned the beautifully desperate words in Ask the Dust: “Los Angeles, give me some of you! …Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.” Los Angeles was his muse and inspired him to write some of the most influential prose about the American immigrant experience and the development of a young writer ever to reach print. A panel of Fante fans and scholars visit Zócalo to celebrate his work.

From Zocalo’s website:

Discovering John Fante is like tasting garlic for the first time. He is a quintessential Los Angeles writer, who penned the beautifully desperate words in Ask the Dust, “Los Angeles, give me some of you!…Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.” H.L. Mencken, John Steinbeck, Charles Bukowski, Robert Towne and Francis Ford Coppola number among the many fans who swear by Fante, who might have turned 100 this year if he hadn’t taken such lousy care of himself. (It’s a miracle he made it to 74.) Los Angeles was his muse, and inspired from him some of the most influential prose about the American immigrant experience and the development of a young writer ever to reach print. A panel of fans and scholars — including Fante biographer Stephen Cooper, KCRW’s Frances Anderton, and Esotouric co-founder Richard Schave – visit Zócalo to celebrate the work of John Fante.

The program will be moderated by David Kipen, Director of Literature, National Endowment for the Arts.

For more information, go to the Hammer Museum’s website, or to the Zocalo website.

 

Wallace Stegner Centennial: NY Times Takes Notice

The New York Times commemorated the centennial of Wallace Stegner’s birth with an opinion piece by Timothy Egan which focused on the Times’ condescending treatment toward Stegner and other “western” writers.  Mr. Egan writes, in part:

Were Stegner around this week to blow out the 100 candles on his birthday cake, it’s likely he would still be mad at the East Coast Media Conspiracy, and by that he meant this newspaper.

“It was the New York Times that broke his heart,” said Nancy Packer, a retired professor of English at Stanford, who knew Stegner well in the time he nurtured writers from Ken Kesey to Larry McMurtry here on the Farm, as the university is known.

Stegner won the National Book Award for “The Spectator Bird,” which the Times never reviewed. He also won a Pulitzer for his best-loved novel, “Angle of Repose,” which the paper only noticed after the award, and then with a sniff.

Even in anointing him the dean of Western writers, the Times couldn’t get his name right, calling him “William” Stegner. He died in 1993 at the age of 84.

Living and writing in the West, Stegner wrote, left him with the feeling that “I gradually receded over the horizon and disappeared.”

The fact that a writer of Stegner’s stature felt ghettoized with the dreaded tag of “regional author” raises the question of whether our national literature is too tightly controlled by the so-called cultural elite – those people who talk to each other in some mythic Manhattan echo chamber.

–Frank Gruber

 

“The Utopian Impulse in California Culture” – Blog post by Peter Richardson

In his blog, Peter Richardson, who teaches California culture at San Francisco State University, writes, “Without really thinking about it, I started exploring a new aspect of the main theme in my San Francisco State class–the utopian impulse in California culture.”  He continues:

My exploration started with the film “Humboldt County,” which I finally saw on DVD a few weeks ago. It’s about an emotionally shut down medical student in Los Angeles who reconnects with the world after he stumbles upon an alternative (read: pot-growing) scene in Northern California. No need to rehearse the plot details here, but the people he meets are deeply ambivalent about the utopian–or is it dystopian?–community they’ve created.

More at the blog.

For me, I can’t hear the words “utopia” and “California” without thinking about William Alexander McClung’s book, Landscapes of Desire: Anglo Mythologies of Los Angeles, in which Prof. McClung describes how the conflict between utopian dreams and arcadian dreams has defined so much of the culture in L.A.; I suspect the mythologies also have currency in other parts of the state. –Frank Gruber

 

WALLACE STEGNER CENTENNIAL: Panel discussion, Feb. 18, in San Francisco

A panel discussion for the Wallace Stegner centennial, featuring PHILIP FRADKIN, author of Wallace Stegner and the American West, PAGE STEGNER, Professor of Literature, UC Santa Cruz, and NANCY PACKER, Professor Emerita of Creative Writing, Stanford University, will take place Wednesday, February 18, 6 p.m., at the Commonwealth Club, 595 Market Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco. 415-597-6705. $12 for members, $18 for non-members.

 

“Palo Alto Reads” — Brian Copeland on his book, “Not a Genuine Black, Man: My Life as an Outsider,” Jan. 28

In the Palo Alto Reads series, author Brian Copeland will discuss his new book, Not a Genuine Black Man: My Life as an Outsider.

From the announcement:

In the summer of 1972, when Brian Copeland was eight, his family moved from Oakland to San Leandro, hoping for a better life. At the time, San Leandro was 99.99% white and the suburban community was not welcoming to African Americans. This reputation was confirmed almost immediately: Brian got his first look at the inside of a cop car. Days later, Brian was turned away by several barbers who said “we don’t cut that kind of hair.”

It was a time that Brian spent his adult years trying to forget, until one day an anonymous letter arrived that forced him to reevaluate his childhood: “As an African American, I am disgusted every time I hear your voice because YOU are not a genuine black man!”

A poignant, hilarious, and disarming memoir about growing up black in an all-white suburb, Not a Genuine Black Man is also a powerful contemplation on the meaning of race, and a thoughtful examination of how our surroundings make us who we are.

Palo Alto Reads: Brian Copeland
Not a Genuine Black Man: My Life as an Outsider
Wednesday January 28, 2009 6:30 p.m.

Location: Palo Alto High School Haymarket Theater, 50 Embarcadero Rd., Palo Alto

FREE and Open to the Public

 

CSA Blog posts Silicon Valley Bibliography by Julia Stein

On another page of this blog, the California Studies Association has posted a bibliography of writings about Silicon Valley compiled by CSA Steering Committe member Julia Stein in anticipation of the CSA’s upcoming conference (April 24) in Cupertino, “Debugging the Silicon Dream: Real Life in a Virtual World.” The bibliography is a work-in-progress and readers are encouraged to contact Julia with suggestions.

 

“Mary Austin and the American West” — reviewed by Peter Richardson

The new biography of (originally) Californian writer Mary Austin (author of The Land of Little Rain), Mary Austin and the American West, by Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson, was reviewed in the L.A. Times Sun., Jan. 25, 2009, by Peter Richardson.  From the review:

The arc of Austin’s career would present a challenge for any biographer, but, in “Mary Austin and the American West,” Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson meet that challenge head on. They pore over Austin’s spirited correspondence and map her extensive contacts, which came to include Jack London, Herbert Hoover, D.H. Lawrence and Willa Cather. They track her advocacy on women’s issues and on the preservation of Indian and Mexican culture in the Southwest. Sifting through her published work, they acknowledge its shortcomings, attributing most of them to her need for income. They also compare her to contemporaries, including John Muir, who shared Austin’s astonishing powers of observation but lacked her feeling for people and culture.

The force of Austin’s personality wafts up from Goodman and Dawson’s portrait. As a professional lecturer and self-styled expert on race, gender and psychic phenomena, Austin offered her opinions freely and magisterially. In an unfinished Lawrence play, a character based on Austin says, “Won’t you all sit down and discuss the situation, while I solve it?” Her pronouncements produced an occasional irony. Having claimed that she preferred an unfaithful man to a stingy husband, for example, she was flummoxed when Lincoln Steffens put that assertion to the test. (After he terminated their affair, she threatened to demand reparations for loss of work and suffering.) But Austin could deploy irony as well. Proposing a literary collaboration with Sinclair Lewis, she wrote, “I know I’m feminine, damnably feminine, and not ashamed of it, but I’m not ladylike. You can count on my behaving like a gentleman.” Her blend of brass and innocence exasperated some and endeared her to others.

 

Joe Mathews writes in the L.A. Times on whether California has always been in crisis

In an article in the L.A. Times on Sun., Jan. 25, 2009, author Joe Mathews, currently an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation, wondered if, based on his reading of writings by Carey McWilliams, Joan Didion and others, the norm throughout California’s history has been financial crisis, as the state has had to deal with the costs of continuous growth.

From the article:

“‘No calculus exists by which needs can be fully anticipated in California,’ McWilliams wrote. ‘Other communities can project a population curve, and, with fair accuracy, anticipate needs twenty and thirty years in advance; but it would be a brave man, indeed, who would undertake to chart California’s growth for the next decade. There are too many unpredictable factors; too many variable elements.’

“That passage begs the question that’s been posed recently by media analysts, and even by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in this month’s state of the state address: Is California still governable? Reading McWilliams suggests the proper answer is another question: When was California ever governable?”

 

Going to See the Elephant: Author event Jan. 16 at Book Passage Bookstore, Marin

Rodes Fishburne talks about his debut novel Going to See the Elephant ($22.00). On a windy September day, 25-year-old Slater Brown stands in the back of a bicycle taxi hurtling the wrong way down the busiest street in San Francisco. Slater has come to “see the elephant,” to stake his claim to fame and become the greatest writer ever. But this city of gleaming water and infinite magic has other plans!

Fri., Jan. 16, 7:00 pm

Book Passage Bookstores, Corte Madera, Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, CA 94925, Phone: (415) 927-0960

 

Jack London in Paradise: Author event Jan. 14 at Book Passage Books in San Francisco

Paul Malmont talks about Jack London in Paradise, his new novel about the eminent Californian. From the Book Passage website: “An aging filmmaker is desperate for one more Jack London picture to save his career. He tracks him from the mysterious ruins of their once-magnificent Wolf House across the Pacific to Hawaii. The Jack London he finds there is a man struggling with the ghosts of his past.”

Book Passage, 1 Ferry Building, #42, San Francisco, CA 94111, (415) 835-1020

 

Jack London in Paradise: Author event at Book Soup in L.A. Jan. 15

Paul Malmont presents and signs Jack London in Paradise, his new book about the eminent Californian.  From the Book Soup website:

Explorer. Social activist. Romantic. Self-educated genius. White Fang. Call of the Wild. Martin Eden. The Sea-Wolf. Generations worldwide have been thrilled by his tales, probably never realizing how true to life they really were. He did not imagine the hardships and brutality of life in the Yukon, on the high seas, or in the back alleys of Oakland. He lived them. Few men were his equal and only one woman ever fully captivated his heart. By the time he was forty, no American was more famous. And in the winter of 1915, the great writer set sail on one last adventure.

Thurs., Jan. 15, 2009, 7:oo p.m., at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., W. Hollywood CA 90069.

 

ANTHOLOGY: Peter Richardson on Organic Farming, Gonzo, and the Fake Angelino

ANTHOLOGY FROM THE FIELD.

Peter Richardson, author of American Prophet: The Life & Work of Carety McWilliams, and CSA steering committee member, has a few blog posts some CSAers will want to catch up on. He is currently at work researching a book on Ramparts magazine.

Here, Richardson writes about his interviews with Robert Sheer on Ramparts and Sheer’s new book.

He plugged a new blog, the Fake Angelino.

Here and Here he commented on the new Hunter S. Thompson documentary.

Here he writes a brief on Rick Wartzman’s Obscene in the Extreme about “the furor following the publication of The Grapes of Wrath.“

He also wrote on an event called Outstanding in the Field that took place
at an organic farm in Wadell Creek.

Finally, he reviewed a book about Eugene Debs for the LA Times.

 

CENTENNIAL: William Saroyan Centennial Celebration – Reception, Concert, New Heyday Book, and Huge, Year-Long Fresno Celebrations, Stanford, Fresno (Fri., Sept. 5, Stanford; Ongoing, Fresno)

Below I first pasted the Stanford Announcement. Below that is the Heyday book description and announcement. In addition to this event, there’s a slew of events in Fresno here.

William Saroyan Centennial Celebration – Reception & Concert

2008 marks the 100th anniversary of William Saroyan’s birth, and Stanford is celebrating. In an afternoon reception in Green Library, we will simultaneously celebrate the launch of Heyday Books’ compilation “He Flies Through the Air with the Greatest of Ease: A William Saroyan Reader”, and recognize the winners of the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Malcolm Margolin and Herbert Gold will speak at the event.

Following the reception, an evening performance showcasing Saroyan’s musical talents and collaborations will be held in Kresge Auditorium. Gregory Wait, Senior Lecturer and Director of Vocal Studies at Stanford University, and Music Director of Schola Cantorum, will direct the program, which will feature a world premier of Girakgi Picnic, a piece by William Saroyan and Alan Hovhaness that was recently discovered in Stanford’s William Saroyan archive.

Friday, September 5, 2008.  3:00 PM.

Approximate duration of 3.5 hour(s).

Stanford University, Green Library East (3:00-4:30) Kresge Auditorium (5:30-6:30)

http://library.stanford.edu/saroyan/centennial.html

Stanford University Libraries Contact:

725-5813

mcalter@stanford.edu

Free to the public

********

He Flies through the Air with the Greatest of Ease: A William Saroyan Reader

A Great Valley Book

In celebration of one of America’s literary greats

“Through the air on the flying trapeze, his mind hummed. Amusing it was, astoundingly funny. A trapeze to God, or to nothing, a flying trapeze to some sort of eternity; he prayed objectively for strength to make the flight with grace.”—From “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze”

Published for the centennial celebration of the iconic author’s birth, this collection of William Saroyan’s writings overflows with exuberance, explodes with flashes of pure brilliance and literary daring, and brings to life an Armenian American voice unique and unforgettable. A careful selection of known and loved short stories along with plays, novels, letters, essays, and previously unpublished works, this volume allows readers to discover afresh the many aspects of a complex, engaging, and sophisticated writer.

For more information on the William Saroyan Centennial, visit these websites:

• www.saroyancentennial.org
• www.saroyancentennial.org/Cal_OctNovDec.html
• http://events.stanford.edu/events/117/11755

 

NEWS: CSA Announces Partnership With Art California, A Major Internet Resource

The CSA has partnered with Art California, a major internet resource for the arts across the state. Judy Malloy, a journalist on and advocate for the arts, has managed the Art California site since 2004, compiling thousands of links related to film, painting, music, museums, archives, writers in the web directory portion of the site. She has also maintained a significant calendar on events across the state.

Art California is an achievement that will benefit CSA members and constituents. Ms. Malloy will collaborate with Aaron Wilcher, the CSA blog editor, to keep the CSA informed on news, events, and resources on California arts through our calendar and news page. This, in turn, will inform our partnership with the H-California discussion network.

We encourage you to visit her site and use it in your research, education, and writing projects.

 

NEWS: CSA Announces Partnership With the H-California Discussion Network

The CSA and H-California (Humanities Discussion Network, California) are proud to announce a new partnership to advance their missions to serve the communities of scholars, activists, and professionals who rely on scholarship in the humanities for their work. We are joining forces to strengthen the service we provide our communities.

In the last year, the CSA has undertaken a more robust approach to its use of the internet to serve its members by adopting a new website and a blog. These projects will be enhanced by collaborating with the editors at H-California who run a listserv (an email list), and an online forum with resources, through the international Humanities Network, h-net.org.

H-California functions as a way for scholars, activists, and nonprofit professionals to communicate about scholarly projects about California. Many of the postings are book reviews, calls for papers, event announcements, queries for projects, new resources, and so forth.

The CSA will collaborate with H-California in the following capacities:

* Shared news items, syndicated between the CSA blog and the H-California listserv.

* Promoting resources, events, and projects between the two resources.

We strongly encourage CSA members and our community to join the H-California listserv, an automated email discussion board of all news and events related to humanities scholarship in California. The CSA will list all our news, events, blog postings, and official communication on the H-California listserv.

 

CALL FOR PAPERS: 15th Annual Robinson Jeffers Association Conference, Boulder, Colorado (Mon. Dec. 15 Deadline; Conference Fri. to Sun. Feb 13-19)

From U Penn English

Call for Papers
15th Annual Robinson Jeffers Association Conference
February 13-15, 2009 (President’s Day weekend)
University of Colorado, Boulder

Conference theme: The Alpine Jeffers

Jeffers is most frequently associated with the California coast and the
ocean he so deeply loved. At the same time, his interest in the alpine
world is everywhere evident in his work. Mountains appear throughout his
poems, from the early poem “The Alpine Christ,” to the ridge line that
California rides at night in “Roan Stallion,” all the way through to the
setting of his last long poem, Hungerfield, at the foot of a “thin turfed
mountain,” and in countless lyrics. In Jeffers’ journeys away from the
ocean, he always turned to the mountains; his only poem set in New Mexico
is “New Mexico Mountain,” and his only poem set in Colorado is “Red
Mountain.” Wherever we turn in his work, mountains appear as
manifestations of nature at the same time as they suggest the richest
possible range of symbols, from Sinai to Olympus, Parnassus, Mt. Blanc,
and all that such places represent in the history of art and culture.

For its fifteenth annual conference, the Association welcomes papers that
explore any aspect of Jeffers’s interest in and representation of the
alpine environment, from geological fact to aesthetic or religious
symbol, from setting to subject, from representation to interpretation.

As usual, serious papers on other subjects and on the relation of Jeffers
to other writers, artists and thinkers are also welcome.

Proposals should be relatively brief and must be postmarked by December
15, 2008. The conference has a number of different formats and includes
opportunities for standard academic talks (15-20 mins.), longer plenary
presentations, responses to longer talks, panel chairs, participation in
discussion sections, and poetry readings.

Please address all queries and proposals directly to Rob Kafka,
Treasurer, at rkafka_at_unex.ucla.edu.

To learn more about the Robinson Jeffers Association, please visit
www.jeffers.org