Society of Early Americanists

The Society of Early Americanists Newsletter, Vol. 12, n. 2

Greetings ...

T hose of you who missed the SEA/ALA sessions in Long Beach missed three stimulating, well attended panels. During the 2000 meetingof theAmericanLiteratureAssociation, SEA's governing council approved several actions that require your attention. First, a series of changes to the SEA By-Laws were presented for the approval of the membership. These cover the procedures by which SEA conducts conferences and special meetings. It also gives SEA the ability to recognize and award prizes to individuals. Zabelle Stodola has forwarded these changes to you in her June mailing. Please cast your votes (it can be done electronically through the SEA website listed on the masthead of this newsletter) so that some determination can be made about the proposed changes.

Also included in her mailing was a call for candidates to become the next Executive Coordinator of the Society. This important officer supervises the finances and membership roles of SEA. The job lasts 2 years, and after its completion the Executive Coordinator becomes Vice- President for 2 years and then President for 2 years. Candidates should be able to secure approximately a $1,400 subvention per annum for six years from their home institutions to assist in the mailing and printing costs of being an SEA officer. If you are interested, submit you name to Zabelle before Oct. I so it can be placed on the ballot in time for the fall mailing. The new Executive Coordinator will assume office at the 8-10 March 2001 SEA Conference in Norfolk.

You've all received a copy of the Call for Papers for the SEA biennial Conference. Note that the deadline for submitting you paper proposals to the session chairs is 15 September. Jeffrey Richards and Dennis Moore have been laboring diligently with the conference program committee to secure a broad array of topics and stimulating plenary speakers. Latest word has it that they have secured Bill Kelso, the historical archaeologist who discovered the site of the Jamestown fort, to report on the spectacular finds his crew is exhuming there. Jeffrey has promised that SEA will have ample opportunity to view the vestiges of colonial Norfolk and experience the diversions of tidewater Virginia.

SEA will also sponsor panels at ALA (Boston) and ASECS (New Orleans) in 2001. Proposals for ALA sessions should be submitted to SEA VP Philip Gould at Brown University by 15 November. Dennis Moore has indicated that the panel topic for SEAIASECS will be 18th-century American Foodways. Those interested in proposing papers should send an abstract to Dennis as soon as possible at dmoore@english.fsu.edu.

On the third weekend in May 2002, SEA will sponsor a summit of approximately 90 colonial Ibero-Americanists and Anglo-Americanists at the Westward Look Resort outside of Tucson, AZ. Ralph Bauer is chairing the gathering, which is designed to acquaint those present with the latest configurations of the canons of these two literary traditions. The University of Arizona will sponsor sessions on the Native American cultural interactions with both traditions as part of the meeting. Readings for the conference will be posted on the SEA website sometime in 2001. Ralph Bauer will issue a call for participants after the first of the year.

Philip Gould has agreed to host SEA's 2003 biennial meeting at Providence, R.I. And I should also mention, in conclusion, that we hope to post SEAN on the Society's website, which in time might include back issues. So there is much to anticipate in the coming months and years.

I hope to see you all in Norfolk.

David Shields