New Books: The Red Badge to Gettysburg (novel) by Charles LaRocca

The above mentioned book is now available on the Amazon bookstore site as an ebook. The paperback edition will be coming soon. — Chuck LaRocca

The Red Badge to Gettysburg

An Episode of the American Civil War

By Charles LaRocca

The Civil War is in its third year with no end in sight. On every front, the Confederate armies seem to be invincible. At the recent Battle of Chancellorsville, the combination of Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall Jackson” is once again victorious. The much larger Army of the Potomac has been defeated and is in retreat. But Private Henry Fleming of the 304^th New York Volunteers, the “youth” who ran away in Stephen Crane’s novel, The Red Badge of Courage, does not feel defeated. He fought well, even captured a Confederate battle flag for which he is roundly congratulated by his “pards” and by the officers of the Regiment. For his bravery and leadership ability, he will be promoted to the rank of 2^nd Sergeant.

The 304^th New York Infantry marches back to winter camp, licks its wounds and prepares for the summer campaign. Henry returns to the simple log hut where he and his friend Wilson spent the winter along with two other soldiers who did not come back from Chancellorsville. They invite two brothers, Patrick and Paul Walker, to share their cabin and settle down to the normal routine of army life.

 Henry does not have the least idea as to the duties of a 2^nd Sergeant, but he knows that it is a difficult job with a lot of responsibility. He will be taught those duties by 1^st Sergeant Sam Kneely, a recent addition to the Regiment who arrives in camp after the battle. Sam is accompanied by a young Lieutenant named Milnor Brown who will become the new commander of the Company. Both are combat veterans who served in the New York State Militia. But these two men turn out to be much more than they appear. They are special agents sent by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to investigate a very small but dangerous group of Nativists, separate from the Copperhead anti-war Democrats, who are suspected of spreading discord in the army. The Nativists are advocates of white supremacy who want to weaken army moral. They abhor Catholics, especially recent Irish and German immigrants, and seek to undermine Lincoln’s policy of emancipation and his plan to recruit and arm black soldiers.

The Nativists know that working men in the north will oppose the new Enrollment Act of 1863, also known as the Military Draft Act, which makes all males, ages 20 to 45, liable to be drafted into the Union army. The law is very unpopular in part because it exempts from military service anyone who can pay a $300 “commutation fee” or hire a substitute. The well-off can afford the fee but very few immigrant laborers have that kind of money to spare. The Nativists plan to whip up opposition and encourage violent riots to oppose the draft all over the north. They hope to foment a violent insurgency that will undermine the Constitution, bring down the Federal government, and insure white supremacy. They will steal, murder, and incite to riot to achieve their goals.

Henry must learn his new job and deal with the Nativist menace while preparing himself and his men for the battles they all know are coming. Ahead lay events that will change the course of American history.

CFP Updated and Deadline Extended: The Nonhuman in American Literary Naturalism (Deadline 2.17.21)

UPDATED AND DEADLINE EXTENDED: 

Call for proposals  

The Nonhuman in American Literary Naturalism 

Editors: Kenneth K Brandt and Karin M Danielsson 

At the end of the 19^th century, American authors such as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London were influenced by new advances in science—notably the idea of evolution. Nature and the nonhuman were crucial for these writers, whom scholars   most often group under the rubric of American literary naturalists. Traditional scholarship on American literary naturalism has closely attended to various environmental pressures in urban and wilderness settings, but scholars have paid much less attention to the naturalists’ investigations into the nonhuman, such as animals, plants, landscapes, houses, or weather. To extend and deepen our understanding of this under-researched field, we propose a volume of essays that offers a wide variety of innovative critical approaches to the nonhuman in American naturalist literature. We welcome studies based in ecocriticism, animal studies, new materialism, narrative theory, or ethics. We are receptive to essay proposals focused on the core naturalists from around 1900 as well as more contemporary writers in the naturalist tradition. Proposals may focus on authors including Crane, Norris, London, Wharton, Garland, Dreiser, Chopin, Dunbar, Sinclair, Twain, Glasgow, Frederic, Cather, O’Neill, Steinbeck, Wright, Hemingway, Petry, Dos Passos, Larsen, Farrell, Hammett, Cain and others. More recent writers may include Oates, Vonnegut, DeLillo, Morrison, McCarthy, Wilson, Pynchon, and others. The editors are particularly interested in proposals on Larsen, Dreiser, Wright, Twain, Petry, and authors in the SF, cyberpunk, and biopunk traditions.  

Possible topic areas might include but are not limited to: 

• Animal agency    
• Anthropomorphism 
• Nonhuman sentience 
• Ecology 
• Ethology 
• Evolution 
• Farming 
• Forests, trees, plants 
• Houses and other structures 
• Human–nonhuman intersubjectivity 
• Landscape and place 
• Physical or environmental transformations   
• Posthumanism 
• Speciesism 
• Technology’s intersections with the nonhuman 
• Weather and climate 
• Wild, feral, and domestic nonhumans 

The Lexington Books Ecocritical Theory and Practice series editor has expressed a strong interest in the project and has requested a full proposal. It is the publisher’s wish that authors or at least one co-author holds a PhD. 

We invite essay proposals of a maximum of 500 words on any topic relating to the nonhuman in American literary naturalism by the deadline of 17 February, 2021. Please include a title, a maximum of five key words, and a brief biography. We aim to reply to respondents by 25 February 2021, and full drafts of essays (5000–8000 words) will be due 1 September 2021. Please send a 500-word maximum proposal and a brief biography to karin.molander.danielsson@mdh.se and kbrandt@scad.edu by 17 February, 2021. 

CFP: Stephen Crane Symposium (Deadline: February 28, 2021)

Call for Papers:   Stephen Crane Symposium

The town of Badenweiler (Baden-Württemberg) and the English Department of the Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg will jointly celebrate the 150^th birthday of American writer Stephen Crane. Crane succumbed to tuberculosis in Badenweiler on June 5^th, 1900, having arrived there only a few days earlier.

The symposium will take place in Badenweiler, Oct. 31^st and Nov. 1^st.

Papers are invited especially on the topic of Stephen Crane’s Europe: He lived in England, travelled to Ireland, passed through France and Switzerland, reported on the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, and he died in Germany. But did he develop a relation to any of these places? How much did he know about where he was, and what he was seeing? And was he even interested? Attempts at placing Crane within the larger context of the Anglo- / American presence along the Upper Rhine are also welcome.

Submission deadline: Feb. 28^th 2021. Successful submissions will be contacted by March 15^th

Sent submissions to: wolfgang.hochbruck@anglistik.uni-freiburg.de

Happy birthday to Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871)

Happy birthday to Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871)!

CFP: Stephen Crane Panels at ALA 2021

 Call for Papers

Stephen Crane Society

ALA 2021

The Stephen Crane Society will sponsor two sessions at the American Literature Association Conference at the Westin Copley Place in Boston on May 27-31, 2021. All topics are welcome. Here, for example, are a few suggestions:

• Crane’s depiction of war
• Crane and the arts (e. g., painting, photography, music)
• Crane’s depiction of the city
• Crane’s poetry
• Crane’s journalism
• the Sullivan County tales and sketches
• the Western stories
• the Whilomville stories
• one of Crane’s lesser-known novels (The Third Violet, Active Service, or The O’Ruddy)
• Crane’s depiction of women
• Crane’s relationship with other writers, e. g., Garland, Howells, Conrad, or Frederic
• Crane’s influence on later writers

Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes.

You may also propose a roundtable discussion on, say, teaching Crane’s short stories.

Please email abstracts or papers of no more than ten double-spaced pages by January 31, 2021, to the program chair:

Paul Sorrentino

psorrent@vt.edu

For more information about the conference, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org. If you have specific questions about ALA, contact the Conference Co-Director and Executive Coordinator of ALA, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield, at carr@georgiasouthern.edu or the Executive Director of ALA, Professor Alfred Bendixen, at ab23@princeton.edu.

CFP: The Nonhuman in American Literary Naturalism

The Nonhuman in American Literary Naturalism

Editors: Kenneth K Brandt and Karin M Danielsson

At the end of the 19^th century, American authors such as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London were influenced by new advances in science—notably the idea of evolution. Nature and the nonhuman were crucial for these writers,
whom scholars   most often group under the rubric of American literary naturalists. Traditional scholarship on American literary naturalism has closely attended to various environmental pressures in urban and wilderness settings, but scholars have paid much
less attention to the naturalists’ investigations into the nonhuman, such as animals, plants, landscapes, houses, or weather. To extend and deepen our understanding of this under-researched field, we propose a volume of essays that offers a wide variety of
innovative critical approaches to the nonhuman in American naturalist literature. We welcome studies based in ecocriticism, animal studies, new materialism, narrative theory, or ethics. We are receptive to essay proposals focused on the core naturalists from
around 1900 as well as more contemporary writers in the naturalist tradition. Proposals may focus on authors including Crane, Norris, London, Wharton, Garland, Dreiser, Chopin, Dunbar, Sinclair, Twain, Glasgow, Frederic, Cather, O’Neill, Steinbeck, Wright,
Hemingway, Petry, Dos Passos, Larsen, Farrell, Hammett, Cain and others. More recent writers may include Oates, Vonnegut, DeLillo, Morrison, McCarthy, Wilson, Pynchon, and others.

Possible topic areas might include but are not limited to:

• Animal agency  
• Anthropomorphism
• Nonhuman sentience
• Ecology
• Ethology 
• Evolution
• Farming
• Forests, trees, plants
• Houses and other structures
• Human–nonhuman intersubjectivity
• Landscape and place
• Physical or environmental transformations
• Posthumanism 
• Speciesism 
• Technology’s intersections with the nonhuman
• Weather and climate
• Wild, feral, and domestic nonhumans

 

The Lexington Books Ecocritical Theory and Practice series editor has expressed a strong interest in the project and has requested a full proposal. It is the publisher’s wish that authors or at least one co-author holds a PhD.

We invite essay proposals of a maximum of 500 words on any topic relating to the nonhuman in American literary naturalism by the deadline of the
8 January 2021. Please include a title, a maximum of five key words, and a brief biography. We aim to reply to respondents by 25 February 2021, and full drafts of essays (5000–8000 words)
will be due 1 September 2021. Please send a 500-word maximum proposal and a brief biography to karin.molander.danielsson@mdh.se and
kbrandt@scad.edu by 8 January, 2021.

ALA Canceled for 2020

Updated Message (March 20, 2020)

ALA Conference and Coronavirus:

I deeply regret to inform you that we have had to cancel the ALA conference scheduled for May 21-24, 2020 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. The current situation in California and much of the rest of the country has made it impossible for us to hold this conference.  The hotel is suspending normal operations and has agreed to allow us to cancel without penalty.

Please cancel your travel plans and your hotel reservations. [Read the rest at http://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-2020-and-covid-19/]

Stephen Crane Studies volume 24 is here

Volume 24 of Stephen Crane Studies is here!

Table of Contents

1, Vincent Michael Basso, “Narrative Symmetries: Crane’s Maggie and the Bluebird of Mulberry Bend”

2. Shunji Kuga, “’Nothing Had Happened.’—Why?: Stephen Crane’s Three Mexican Stories”

3. Maggie E. Morris Davis, “The Urban Antithesis: Crane’s Whilomville Stories”

4. George Monteiro, “Stephen Crane: Some Unrecorded Newspaper Comments”

Contributors’ Notes

 

In Memoriam: George Monteiro (1932-2019)

From Brown University, via Paul Sorrentino (link not available):

Professor Emeritus of English and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies George Monteiro passed away on November 5th from a heart attack. Born in Valley Falls, RI, in 1932, he was a graduate of Cumberland High School. He received an A.B. from Brown in 1954, an A.M.. from Columbia University in 1956, and a Ph.D. from Brown in English and American Literature in 1964. Monteiro spent his whole professional career at Brown. He was hired as an Instructor in English in 1961, became an Assistant Professor in 1965, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1968, and to Full Professor in 1972. He served as Assistant Dean of the College in 1965-66, co-chaired the Program in American Civilization (now the Department of American Studies) from 1971 to 1973, and was an Assistant Chair of the English department from 1978 to 1980.
​
From 1969 to 1971, he was a Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, an experience that had a profound effect on him personally and professionally. Having learned Portuguese at home from his immigrant parents from mainland Portugal, he immediately felt at home in Brazil, as he rediscovered the Portuguese language and reconnected with his family’s cultural roots. When he returned to Brown, he was determined to establish a program in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at his Alma Mater. In the mid- 1970s, as the university increasingly moved in the direction of interdisciplinary studies, Professor Monteiro was instrumental in gathering a group of faculty members from various departments, whose scholarship and teaching were related to the Lusophone world, and successfully proposing to the administration the establishment of a multidisciplinary Center for Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and Bilingual Education. He was appointed its first Director in 1975, serving in that capacity until 1980. That was the beginning of a second academic career of sorts. While continuing as an active member of the English Department, he spent considerable time at the new center (after 1991, Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies), well beyond his official 25% effort. He was a caring and dedicated mentor to generations of undergraduate and graduate students, in English, American Studies, and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, who remember him fondly.​
​
Professor Monteiro was the author of some forty books and published more than three hundred articles in dozens of academic journals in the United States, Europe and Brazil. His books covered a variety of topics, ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Bishop, Stephen Crane, Robert Frost, and Herman Melville in the field of American Literature, to Portuguese authors such as Luís de Camões, Jorge de Sena, and Fernando Pessoa, on whose works he became an expert. In addition to an internationally recognized scholar, Professor Monteiro was a poet and translator. Notable among his several volumes of poetry is a book-length poetic dialogue with Pessoa, The Pessoa Chronicles – Poems, 1980-2016. His many translations of Portuguese poetry into English include Pessoa, Sena, Miguel Torga, and, most recently, Pedro da Silveira. He has left more than thirty unpublished volumes on a wide range of topics.​
​
In 1989 he was awarded the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator by the Portuguese government “for distinguished contributions to the study and dissemination of Portuguese culture,” and in 1993 he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth for his accomplishments as a scholar of both American and Portuguese literature.​
​
Professor Monteiro’s life and works were the subject of a collective volume, George Monteiro: the Discreet Charm of a Portuguese-American Scholar (Gávea-Brown, 2005). News of his death has generated a large number of testimonials by friends and admirers of his work, particularly in the Lusophone media.​
​
He loved baseball, and may be the only person in the world who has ever rooted for both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.​
​
Besides his wife, Brenda Murphy (Brown Ph.D. 1975), he is survived by his children, Kate Monteiro of Warwick, RI (Brown MA, 1987), Stephen Monteiro (Brown A.B. 1990) of Montréal, Canada, and Emily Monteiro Morelli of Albuquerque, NM; three grandsons, Dante and Aldo Morelli, and Dhruv Monteiro; one brother, Edward Monteiro; and a number of nieces and nephews.​
​
A private memorial service was held in Windham, Connecticut, where he lived for many years. The Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies will hold a celebration of Professor Monteiro’s life and career in the spring semester on a date to be announced.​
​

Stephen Crane Studies volume 24 has been mailed

Volume 24 (2019) of Stephen Crane Studies has been mailed to subscribers. You should receive it in the next week or two.