Chowder : Secretary's Report and History of Melville Society Officers

Abstract

Chowder Secretary’s Report and History of Melville Society Officers T he following report is twofold. The first part summarizes the major Melville Society events of the year and the second lists all the officers of the society since it was formed in 1945. I. Annual Report The year 2007 was crowned by the sixth international Melville conference , Hearts of Darkness: Melville and Conrad in the Space of World Culture, co-sponsored by the Conrad and Melville Societies and held August 4–7 in Szczecin, Poland. The conference was co-chaired by Pawel J edrzejko (University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland) and Milton Reigelman (Centre College, Danville, Kentucky). Szczecin was chosen as the site of the conference because, for the first time in the history of the event, the grand finale of “The Tall Ships’ Races” took place there. The conference opened majestically with a reception aboard the Polish tall ship Dar Mlodzieży, which was broadcast on an enormous screen to the 300,000 people then visiting the Tall Ships. The town of Szczecin expected 1.5 million visitors during the length of the event— and had exceeded that number by the end of the second of five days. Hearts of Darkness was a rousing success, with participants from 22 countries. Talking, listening, conversing, singing, eating, and drinking ensued through the four wonderful and exhausting days of the conference. Our most heartfelt thanks go to Pawel and Milton, who worked tirelessly for years to make Hearts of Darkness the success that it was. Thank you both! One of the most important achievements of 2007 was the revision of the Melville Society bylaws. Dennis Berthold, John Bryant, and Chris Sten worked for more than a year and took the bylaws through five revisions before presenting them to the Melville Society Executive Committee, after which they went through one final draft. The Society membership voted this past summer and passed the bylaws 105 in favor and two opposed. Thank you so much to Dennis Berthold, John Bryant, and Chris Sten for all their hard work. The complete C 2008 The Authors Journal compilation C 2008 The Melville Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. L E V I A T H A N A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S 129 E X T R A C T S bylaws are printed in this issue of Leviathan. Earlier bylaws were presented to the Society in 1969: “The Executive Committee, in accordance with the sense of the meeting of the Melville Society on September 6, at Nantucket, presents for adoption at its meeting on December 28, 1969, the following PROPOSED BY-LAWS” (see Extracts: An occasional newsletter, 4 [December 12, 1969], 1–4). The bylaws were revised in 1990 (see Melville Society Extracts, 80 [February 1990], 1); that revision resulted in the position of SecretaryTreasurer -Editor, formerly held by one person, being divided amongst three people. The Melville Society events of 2007 began seven months before the Szczecin conference with the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s annual marathon reading of Moby-Dick on January 3–4, which is traditionally preceded by a “presidential lecture.” Incoming 2007 president Andrew Delbanco was unable to make it to New Bedford, but Editor John Bryant gave an enlightening talk in his stead on “Moby-Dick: Reading, Rewriting, and Editing.” The Melville session of the American Literature Association conference convened May 24 in Boston with a panel chaired and moderated by Elizabeth Renker (Ohio State University) on Melville and the Meaning of Genre. Presenters were Peter Norberg (Saint Joseph’s University), “From ‘Fragments’ to ‘Rammon ’: Poetry as Consolation”; Walt Nott (Kutztown University), “Melville’s ‘The Encantadas’: Genre and the Discourse Community of Putnam’s Monthly”; Jason Corner (The Ohio State University at Newark), “‘An Unaccountable Pair’: Genre and Value in The Confidence-Man”; and Wyn Kelley (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “‘Free Robe and Vest’: Melville and the Uncollected Fragment.” We were deeply saddened to hear that one of the speakers, Walt Nott, died of a heart attack on August 18. He recently completed his doctoral dissertation on Melville and Putnam’s Monthly...