PSA Honorary Member: Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

Abstract

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney is a distinguished scholar, teacher, and creative writer who has contributed significantly to Poe studies worldwide through her presentations, publications, and service to the Poe Studies Association over the course of her productive career. Beth’s research and teaching interests are wide ranging—including detective fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, Vladimir Nabokov, Edith Wharton, Anne Tyler, feminist narratology, local writing, and poetry.Beth first studied Poe in the context of postmodernist “metaphysical” detective stories. Most of her work on detective fiction, including even an essay on Barbara Wilson’s lesbian detective novel Gaudi Afternoon, and some of her work on Nabokov (another major area of study) incorporate Poe. At some point, after chairing a session at the first international Poe conference and beginning to offer a regular seminar on “Poe’s Haunted World,” Beth became utterly absorbed in his work beyond the detective genre. Her training at Mount Holyoke and Brown University is mostly in twentieth-century American and European literature, but delving into Poe involved immersing herself in his world, so she found herself exploring nineteenth-century phenomena such as natural science, artificial light, optical devices, early photography, public speaking, and ventriloquism as contexts for his work. Coming to Poe “in a backwards fashion,” as she recounted in a Zoom seminar last year, allowed her to be playful and experimental, which resulted in her writing a screenplay based on his courtship of Sarah Helen Whitman and sculpting books out of clay representing the experiences of reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Black Cat.” As she wrote to me about her feelings toward the PSA, “I was welcomed by the PSA, and I have met wonderful friends and colleagues” while serving in various leadership roles and participating in many of the PSA’s activities over the years.In addition to the recognition she has received from the PSA for her outstanding research (the Gargano Award for an essay on Poe published in 2018 and in 2020 for a chapter published in a volume that won the Dameron Award), she has contributed significantly to our association by serving as PSA vice president, president, and immediate past president (2007–13), an editorial board member of the Edgar Allan Poe Review, and a member of three international conference program committees, the Gargano and Dameron Award committees, and, most recently, chair of the PSA nominating committee (on which she had served previously as a member). Beyond the PSA, Beth has volunteered her time and expertise to judge the Saturday “Visiter” Awards at the 2022 Poe Fest International. Many of us recall and appreciate seeing or acting in her screenplay about Poe’s romance with Sarah Helen Whitman at the Positively Poe Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia. These contributions, as well as her participation as a speaker and a chair at the PSA’s major conferences as well as at PSA-sponsored sessions at the Modern Language Association and the American Literature Association, illustrate her longtime engagement with and advancement of Poe studies.For her important contributions to Poe studies and her advancement of the mission of our organization, the Poe Studies Association recognizes Susan Elizabeth Sweeney with PSA honorary membership, which includes lifetime dues, a commemorative plaque, and the well-earned admiration of her peers. I look forward to the opportunity to present this award to Beth, if possible, at the 2023 ALA Convention in Boston.