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August 10, 2010

August 10, 2010

The last several years have been very exciting for the Goethe Society, and many people have commented to me on its strength: we had a very successful conference in 2009, we’ve had a series of exciting panels at various conferences, our membership numbers are strong, our book series is bearing fruit, the Goethe Yearbook is online, and our finances have never been in better order! The Society owes much of its recent successes to several individuals who have just completed their elected terms, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them.

When Karin Schutjer and Clark Muenzer were elected directors-at-large, little did they know how drastically this position would change during their term. In addition to being active board members, they, together with Simon Richter, planned and executed our first Goethe Society conference. The conference, as many of us know, was a terrific success thanks to their hard work, organization, and sense of humor. Their work further continued as editors of the forthcoming volume from that conference. We are fortunate that Clark will continue his work as vice-president for the Society.

John Lyon has been an outstanding treasurer and board member and has served two terms. He has done a wonderful job taking charge and shepherding our finances, promoting the Society (our membership grew significantly under his tenure), and providing sound advice when the board needed it most. He has been an excellent treasurer, but most importantly, an invaluable member of the board.

Simon Richter has served the Society for 12 years: he has been a director at large, Yearbook editor, vice-president and has just completed his term as president. It would be impossible to measure his impact on the Society. He has contributed so much over the years. He has been instrumental in energizing the society—in planning our conference, organizing the graduate student dissertation workshop, writing his lively and provocative newsletter columns (including reflections on Goethe camp via Monty Python’s “Holy Grail”) and even bringing the Goethe Society to the realm of Facebook. He brought a tremendous sense of fun to the Society while always keeping an eye on what was most important intellectually. The 2008 MLA panel on Faust with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Brown, and Michael Holquist will surely go down in the annals of the Society as one of its best.

I very much look forward to working with the new and continuing board members and with the members of the Society for the next three years. We already have many exciting plans.

• We have started to work on the next Goethe Society conference that will take place in Chicago in early November 2011. If you have any suggestions about the conference or plenary speakers, please contact me or one of our directors-at-large.
  
  
• The dissertation workshops at our last conference were so successful that we have decided to offer scaled-down versions of them every year. Clark Muenzer is working on the details and will make an announcement about them soon.
  
  
• The Goethe Society book series has three forthcoming books: 1) After Jena: Goethe’s Elective Affinities And The End Of The Old Regime by Peter J. Schwartz (which should just now be available); 2) Reading Riddles: Rhetorics of Obscurity from Romanticism to Freud by Brian Tucker (which will be available by summer); and 3) The Mask and the Quill: Actress-Writers in Germany from Enlightenment to Romanticism by Mary Helen Dupree (which has just been accepted). (Discounts are available to members of the Society if you purchase the books directly from Bucknell University Press.) Jane Brown, the new editor of the series, is looking forward to receiving proposals for future books.

I hope that our Society will continue to thrive. It is especially important during these financially troubled times to continue to support it. We have not raised membership dues in years and have no plans to do so in the near future. We hope that you will continue to be members and to encourage others to join. If you are teaching a graduate course, please encourage all of your students to join: it only costs ten dollars a year for graduate student membership.  Membership at all levels is a terrific deal: it pays for the now-yearly Yearbook, provides a discount on the books in our series, keeps members abreast of developments in our semi-annual newsletter, and allows the board the opportunity to reward and promote scholarship, run dissertation workshops, and organize conferences.

Astrida Tantillo
University of Illinois, Chicago
    

August 10, 2010

Minutes of the Business Meeting
28 December 2009
MLA Convention, Philadelphia

From the President

Simon Richter welcomed all and thanked the outgoing board members (Simon, as President, Clark Muenzer and Karin Schutjer as Directors at Large, and John Lyon as Secretary-Treasurer).  He then introduced the new board members: Astrida Tantillo as President, Clark Muenzer as Vice President (he will accede to the Presidency in 3 years) Claire Baldwin as the new Secretary-Treasurer, Elisabeth Krimmer and Andrew Piper as the new Directors at Large, and Jane Brown as the new Book Series editor.

Simon also announced that, in an effort to encourage young Goethezeit scholars, the board has decided to continue the type of dissertation workshop begun at the Pittsburgh conference, but on an annual basis. It would entail a single workshop (not two, as was done at the conference) of three dissertating graduate students and three faculty and would be associated with a national conference such as the GSA or ASECS.

Simon’s concluding remarks on his tenure as President emphasized the many faces of the Goethe Society of North America. The Yearbook continues to represent the society well and is now online with Project Muse (thanks to Daniel’s efforts), we have a book series dedicated to monographs (thanks to Astrida’s initiative), we host panels at major national conferences (GSA, ASECS, MLA), we have committed ourselves to a major conference on Goethe to take place every three years, we are now adding an annual dissertation workshop, and we are even on Facebook. Our relations with Goethe institutions in Germany were important from the beginning, and although these may have lapsed in recent years, we will renew our efforts to intensify these relationships in the future.

From the Secretary-Treasurer 

The society’s finances are sound (see attached report). Overall financial holdings increased by more than $12,000 over the previous year (about 13%), thanks both to royalties from Project Muse and returns on investments. Membership has dropped, however, so please encourage others to join the society or renew their membership.

From the Executive Secretary

Patricia Simpson advised the society of the new MLA guidelines on panels (each allied organization is guaranteed one panel and may apply for up to two additional panels. Applications that include collaborative panels with another organization will receive greater priority and will likely receive better placement on the program). She will begin seeking out opportunities for collaboration on future MLA panels.

She also announced the following upcoming panels.

• ASECS 2010: “Goethe’s Voices” – Two panels, arranged by Markus Wilczek;
• GSA 2010: Panel on religion, to be organized by Elisabeth Krimmer (details forthcoming); and
• MLA 2011 (January): the society has agreed to include Ellis Dye’s panel on “Self and Self-consciousness [Selbstbewußtsein] in Goethe and Romanticism” among the additional MLA panels (beyond the business meeting) for which it will apply.

From the Vice President

Astrida Tantillo thanked Elisabeth Krimmer and Christian Weber (both former prize recipients) who helped review over 60 essays for consideration of the annual essay prize. She announced the winner:

Tobias Boes (University of Notre Dame): “Apprenticeship of the Novel: The Bildungsroman and the Invention of History, ca. 1770–1820,” Comparative Literature Studies, Volume 45, Number 3, 2008.

On behalf of the society, Astrida expressed thanks and gave gifts to the outgoing board members (see list above).

From the Book Review Editor

Astrida Tantillo announced that the following books will be appearing in the GSNA book series: Peter Schwartz’s book (After Jena: Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the End of the Old Regime) will appear shortly; Brian Tucker’s book (Reading Riddles: Rhetorics of Obscurity from Romanticism to Freud) will appear this summer; Mary Helen Dupree’s book (The Mask and the Quill: Actress-Writers in Germany from Enlightenment to Romanticism) has just been accepted.

Simon Richter encouraged all members to buy these books to help support the series. He reminded us that, as members of the society, we get a 25% discount in ordering the book. There was a question as to how this is done and Simon indicated that books must be ordered through the Bucknell Web site. See ordering information.

Jane Brown announced that the series continues to welcome new and exciting manuscripts.

From the Yearbook Editor

Daniel Purdy announced that Volume 17 is in production and will be mailed out in early February to all members. It is larger than other recent volumes because it contains a special section including many essays from the recent Goethe Conference in Pittsburgh.

Presidential Address

Simon Richter introduced Stefani Engelstein. Stefani presented a paper: “Civic Attachments and Sibling Attractions: The Shadows of Fraternity.” A lively and engaged discussion followed.

Respectfully submitted,

John Lyon
University of Pittsburgh

August 10, 2010

Brown, Jane K. Goethe’s Faust: The German Tragedy. Cornell UP, 1986. ISBN 0-8014-9349-8. (Now in print again with the same bibliographic information.)

In language accessible to students, Goethe’s Faust sets both parts of Faust in sequence in the context of European Romanticism. It interprets the second part as an elaboration of what was implicit in the first, and it clarifies the patterns of thought, organization, and imagery underlying the play. Above all it explores the intertextuality of the play: it examines Goethe’s attitudes toward dozens of poets, playwrights, thinkers, painters, sculptors, and composers, and discusses to which Goethe alludes and responds. In Faust Goethe not only situates German culture within the wider European literary tradition but also demonstrates that all literature is by its nature allusive and exists only as part of a tradition.

Jeffrey L. Sammons, Kuno Francke’s Edition of The German Classics (1913-1915): A Critical and Historical Overview (New York, etc.: Peter Lang, 2009).

The first two volumes of Francke’s edition are devoted to Goethe. A chapter in Sammons’s book describes and evaluates the choice of texts, the translations, and the commentary.

Andrew Piper. Dreaming in Books: The Making of the Bibliographic Imagination in the Romantic Age (Chicago, 2009).

Dreaming in Books chronicles romantic literature’s role in facilitating the profound social investment made in books at the turn of the nineteenth century. Examining novels, critical editions, gift books, translations, and illustrated books, and the literary texts within them, Piper’s study tells a wide-ranging story of the book’s identity at the turn of the nineteenth century. In so doing, it shows how many of the most pressing modern communicative concerns are not unique to the digital age but emerged with a particular sense of urgency during the bookish upheavals of the romantic era. In revisiting the book’s rise through the prism of romantic literature, this book aims to revise our assumptions about romanticism, the medium of the printed book, and, ultimately, the future of the book in our so-called digital age.
  

August 10, 2010

In an ongoing effort to increase the strength of the society, the GSNA is always looking for new members. We ask for your assistance in this endeavor. If you know of any scholars or other interested parties who are interested in the Age of Goethe, but are not yet members, would you please encourage them to join the society? We are particularly interested in recruiting younger scholars—current and recent graduate students—to ensure the society's future for decades to come. Joining is simple. Thanks for your support in this endeavor.

Claire Baldwin
Colgate University
  

August 10, 2010

The GSNA maintains a listserv, goethe-l@davidson.edu, to help facilitate the exchange of ideas among its members. To subscribe, or unsubscribe, members should send an email message to webmaster@goethesociety.org.