Honorary Membership Citations

Abstract

Honorary Membership is the highest award given to a member by our association, and it is intended to recognize significant, sustained, and ongoing contributions to Poe studies and to the Poe Studies Association. Harry Lee Poe has contributed significantly to our organization, and he continues to advance Poe studies through his various activities. It was, therefore, my great pleasure as PSA president to present this award to him on December 2, 2015, at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, where he is Charles Colson Chair of Faith and Culture.A descendent of Edgar Poe's cousin William Poe, Harry Lee Poe has dedicated considerable time and effort to collecting books and other materials related to Poe, which he generously shares through special exhibitions at libraries and conferences for the benefit of students, scholars, and the general public. He has also written books, including Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories (New York: Metro Books, 2008)—winner of the Edgar Award presented by the Mystery Writers of America in 2009 and nominated for the Agatha Award—and Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2012), as well as articles and reviews on a wide variety of Poe-related subjects.Professor Poe has advanced Poe studies locally, nationally, and internationally while serving as president (2001–2007, 2008–2013) of the Poe Museum of Richmond, directing the Poe Young Writers Conference, Richmond, 2004–2013, and codirecting the Positively Poe Conference (with Alexandra Urakova) at the University of Virginia, 2013. He has delivered numerous public lectures and participated as an invited speaker at various colloquia, most recently at the SymPOEsium on PLACE at Middle Tennessee State University. He has also presented academic papers at such conferences as the American Scientific Affiliation Annual Meeting (Baylor University, 2009), the International Research Conference on the Edgar Allan Poe Legacy and the Twenty-First Century, Russian National Library (Saint Petersburg, 2009), the Third International Edgar Allan Poe Conference (Philadelphia, 2009), the Fourth International Poe Conference (New York, 2015), and the International Conference on Poe, Emerson, and Hawthorne (Florence, 2012).Professor Poe is richly deserving of this recognition for these and many other notable contributions to Poe studies, namely, his mentorship of younger Poe scholars and his generous collaborations with more seasoned ones. Whenever he is with a group of people, whether peers or students, Professor Poe finds ways to acknowledge and support the achievements and aspirations of others. He has a way of bringing people together in the most convivial ways, and, whether the organizer of or a participant in a Poe-related event, he brings out the very best of those around him.Shoko Itoh, Professor Emeritus at Hiroshima University, has been a Poe scholar for forty-eight years. Her 1968 M.A. thesis at Hiroshima University concerned “Metamorphosis of Poe's Muse: An Introduction,” and since that time, she has published extensively on Poe, including the influential 1987 book A Road to Arnheim: The World of Edgar Allan Poe and numerous journal articles and book chapters on Poe, more recently with an ecocritical focus. She also translated into Japanese, and annotated, Poe's poems “Tamerlane” and “Al Aaraaf,” and coauthored, with Takayuki Tatsumi, The Japanese Face of Poe. She received her Ph.D. from Hiroshima University in 1997; her teaching career includes two Fulbright scholarships (at Brown University and the University of Virginia) and forty-four years as a faculty member at Notre Dame Seishin College, Hiroshima University, and Matsuyama University. She has been a leader among Japanese scholars of the American Renaissance, mentoring such Poe, Hawthorne, and Thoreau scholars as Kazuhiko Tsuji, Mitsuyo Kido, Hiroshi Shiota, and Kyoko Matsunaga. She was one of the founders of the Japan Poe Society, which sponsors annual conferences on the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, and she has edited its newsletter. She is now the society's vice president. Moreover, she is a regular and welcome participant in Poe conferences abroad. Shoko Itoh has been an important Poe scholar internationally for many years; the Poe Studies Association is very pleased and proud to award her Honorary Membership.