2023 Tennessee Williams Scholars Conference
Friday, March 24, 2023
Schedule of Events
The Historic New Orleans Collection
Williams Research Center
410 Chartres Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
9:00-9:15
Opening remarks, Bess Rowen, Villanova University
9:15-10:30
En Avant! Emerging Williams Scholars
The future is now: join members of the newest wave of Williams scholars as they discuss eugenics in an unpublished Blanche DuBois monologue, the experimental work of notorious radical 1960s theater troupe the Living Theater, and connections between writing and addiction. Moderator: Bess Rowen, Villanova University Panelists: Kaitlyn Farrell Rodriguez, University of Texas, Austin Nigel O’Hearn, University of Texas, Austin Melissa Lin Sturges, University of Maryland, College Park
The future is now: join members of the newest wave of Williams scholars as they discuss eugenics in an unpublished Blanche DuBois monologue, the experimental work of notorious radical 1960s theater troupe the Living Theater, and connections between writing and addiction. Moderator: Bess Rowen, Villanova University Panelists: Kaitlyn Farrell Rodriguez, University of Texas, Austin Nigel O’Hearn, University of Texas, Austin Melissa Lin Sturges, University of Maryland, College Park
10:45-12:00
Interdisciplinary Lenses on Williams
Sometimes it seems that the Williams oeuvre never met a discipline it didn’t like. This year classic works including Suddenly Last Summer and The Glass Menagerie are new again and lesser-known works gain interest under the lenses of visual arts, Jewish influence, biography, and food studies. Moderator: John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine Panelists: Jaclyn Bethany, Independent Scholar Debra Caplan, Baruch College, City University of New York Thierry Dubost, Université de Caen Normandie Henry I. Schvey, Washington University, St. Louis
Sometimes it seems that the Williams oeuvre never met a discipline it didn’t like. This year classic works including Suddenly Last Summer and The Glass Menagerie are new again and lesser-known works gain interest under the lenses of visual arts, Jewish influence, biography, and food studies. Moderator: John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine Panelists: Jaclyn Bethany, Independent Scholar Debra Caplan, Baruch College, City University of New York Thierry Dubost, Université de Caen Normandie Henry I. Schvey, Washington University, St. Louis
1:15-2:45
The Past, the Present, and the Perhaps of Williams Studies: A Roundtable in Honor of
Robert Bray
Robert Bray, founder of the Tennessee Williams Scholars Conference and the Tennessee Williams Annual Review, joins an array of distinguished theater scholars from the US and abroad in a lively, thought-provoking discussion of the state of Williams studies, hosted by R. Barton Palmer, the journal’s editor-in-chief since 2017. Moderator: R. Barton Palmer, Clemson University (emeritus) Panelists: Robert Bray, Middle Tennessee State University (emeritus) Dirk Gindt, Stockholm University John “Ray” Proctor, Tulane University Annette J. Saddik, Graduate Center, City University of New York Respondent: John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine
Robert Bray, founder of the Tennessee Williams Scholars Conference and the Tennessee Williams Annual Review, joins an array of distinguished theater scholars from the US and abroad in a lively, thought-provoking discussion of the state of Williams studies, hosted by R. Barton Palmer, the journal’s editor-in-chief since 2017. Moderator: R. Barton Palmer, Clemson University (emeritus) Panelists: Robert Bray, Middle Tennessee State University (emeritus) Dirk Gindt, Stockholm University John “Ray” Proctor, Tulane University Annette J. Saddik, Graduate Center, City University of New York Respondent: John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine
3:00-4:15
Queerness at Work and Play in and after Williams
Scholars reveal surprising uses and legacies of queerness in Williams’s work: come learn about the French Quarter as a dramatic character, Williams as a foundation for US avant-garde theater, and perversity as a challenge not only to heteronormative sexuality but to the concept of linear time itself. Moderator: David Kaplan, Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival Panelists: Kelly I. Aliano, New-York Historical Society Stephen Cedars, Graduate Center, City University of New York Benjamin Gillespie, Baruch College, City University of New York
Scholars reveal surprising uses and legacies of queerness in Williams’s work: come learn about the French Quarter as a dramatic character, Williams as a foundation for US avant-garde theater, and perversity as a challenge not only to heteronormative sexuality but to the concept of linear time itself. Moderator: David Kaplan, Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival Panelists: Kelly I. Aliano, New-York Historical Society Stephen Cedars, Graduate Center, City University of New York Benjamin Gillespie, Baruch College, City University of New York
4:30-5:15
A Staged Reading of Two Newly Discovered Stories by Williams: “The Caterpillar Dogs” and “Till One or the Other Gits Back”
Theater director and scholar Tom Mitchell, who has uncovered a treasure trove of previously unknown short stories from the Williams archives, presents a staged reading of two unusual showdowns from among his finds: a ferocious elderly descendent of pirates and conquistadors faces off with a pair of Pekinese dogs in twentieth-century St. Louis, and a characteristically Williamsian troubled relationship undergoes its struggles in a very uncharacteristic spaghetti-western setting.
Theater director and scholar Tom Mitchell, who has uncovered a treasure trove of previously unknown short stories from the Williams archives, presents a staged reading of two unusual showdowns from among his finds: a ferocious elderly descendent of pirates and conquistadors faces off with a pair of Pekinese dogs in twentieth-century St. Louis, and a characteristically Williamsian troubled relationship undergoes its struggles in a very uncharacteristic spaghetti-western setting.
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