News
Winner of the 2022 Bruce Harkness Young Scholar Award: Tung An-Wei, “A Tale for Two Readers: Conrad’s ‘The Tale,’” The Conradian, vol. 47, no. 1, 2022.
Winner of the 2022 Zdzislaw Najder Essay Award: Ruchi Mundeja, “Worlding Appetite: Colonialism, Modernism, and the Gustatory in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” English Studies, vol. 102, no. 8, 2021.
CFP Conrad Today: Remediation and Adaptation, Edinburgh University Press proposal.
Robert Hampson and Yael Levin (eds.) invite proposals for a critical engagement with transmedial expressions of Conrad’s work (particularly on adaptations and appropriations by new media). Submission deadline October 1st 2022. See further details at Upcoming Conferences.
CFP International Conference, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland 10th-12th October 2024
The Joseph Conrad Society (Poland) and The Jagiellonian University Joseph Conrad Research Centre invite proposals for papers for the International Conference, to be held at the Jagiellonian University from 10th to 12th October 2024. See further details at Upcoming Conferences.
Zdzislaw Najder Essay Award
The Joseph Conrad Society of America announces the creation of the Zdzislaw Najder Essay Award. See details at Awards.
The Young Scholar Travel Grant Award has been Renamed the Torrens Travel Grant
Named for the Torrens, which was Conrad’s last ship before he embarked on his writing career, travel grants for young scholars are offered by the Joseph Conrad Society of America to offset the cost of attending a conference to present a paper on Conrad. Applicants should submit the following: a letter itemizing travel expenses for the entire trip and indicating financial need (preference will be given to graduate students and adjunct faculty members) and evidence of having a paper on Conrad accepted for presentation at an upcoming conference (a photocopy of either a letter of acceptance or of the appropriate page in a conference program). Applications should be sent to Joyce Wexler, President, The Joseph Conrad Society of America, jwexler@luc.edu . Applicants are encouraged to apply as early as possible, since funds are limited and will be awarded on by a committee of JCSA officers on a first-come, first-served basis.
Award-winning short film about Conrad
Joseph Conrad Dreams and Life was the first-place prize winner of the Polonia Film Festival in 2017. The film was made by Andrzej Siedlecki, emeritus lecturer, Macquarie Uni, Sydney. He sent this message to members of the JCSA: “This is for pro publico bono: Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wDqaZot6K8
PS: If you are happy to use it, please let me know. Zobacz/Look at: www.andrzejsiedlecki.pl
Joseph Conrad Society of America: Anti-Racism Statement
(6/17/2020)
The Executive Council and other members of the Joseph Conrad Society of America write in this important moment to voice our commitment to racial justice. The recent killings of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and countless others underscore the fatal nature of racism in the United States and the need for fundamental change. The Joseph Conrad Society of America stands in solidarity with those working to dismantle racial inequality, brutality, and injustice. We condemn all acts of violence against the Black community from micro-aggressions to physical violence to systemic, structural racism. We bear witness to the extraordinary vulnerability of Black and Brown lives in America, and the persistence of white priority across social and legal institutions that maintain this condition. We unequivocally state that Black Lives Matter, and we express profound sorrow for the families, friends, and communities who have lost irreplaceable lives to racist violence.
We know that no statement of this kind is sufficient, and we are committed to pursuing in coming months concrete ways in which work involving Conrad and our Society can contribute to and work towards racial justice. We will cultivate greater inclusivity in our membership, conferences, and speaking panels, and will continue our promotion of the global diversity of Conrad scholarship that is a central element of Conrad studies worldwide.
Conrad was an immigrant, brought up in a colonized country. His first two novels gave voice to the peoples of Indonesia in the face of British, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese colonialism, while one of his most well-known works, Heart of Darkness, revealed what was happening in the Congo in 1899, before E.D. Morel set up his Congo Reform Association to expose and challenge King Leopold’s exploitation of the Congo and its peoples.
Heart of Darkness has also been challenged by a well-established line of criticism for its own racism, and Conrad’s relation to racism is often complex and contradictory. Many Black and other writers of color in the U.S. and worldwide have since written with intense interest in Conrad: sometimes critically; sometimes in ways that also find great literary, political, and philosophical foundation and inspiration in Conrad; and always thoughtfully, purposively, and from very different points of view considering Conrad, to ends including the challenging of racism, imperialism, and authoritarianism in all forms.*
As part of a global community of Conrad scholars, we are committed to the inclusion of Black and other global voices engaged with Conrad’s works and to the illumination and challenging of racism and imperialism as they are present and also resisted in Conrad’s works. We believe the study of Conrad must be inclusive if it is to have value: the study of Conrad is important in part because of the huge horizons of global context and important questions his works introduce for consideration and dialogue. We value the study of Conrad too for the aspirations of cross-cultural and global solidarity to which his work often gives voice.** Nothing is more anathema to the values of our Society than the discounting of Black lives, or injustice or violence in any form to Black people.
* Such writers include Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Paule Marshall, Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Max Dorsinville, Caryl Phillips, Zakes Mda, Wilson Harris, V.S. Naipaul, Arundhati Roy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, David Dabydeen, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, and foundational postcolonial thinker Edward Said.
** There is a bond between us and that humanity so far away. I am content to sympathize with common mortals, no matter where they live; in houses or in tents, in the streets under a fog, or in the forests behind a dark line of dismal mangroves that fringe the vast solitude of the sea. “ Author’s Note” to Conrad’s first novel, Almayer’s Folly (1895).
Peter Mallios, President, JCSA University of Maryland Joyce Wexler, First Vice-President, JCSA Loyola University Chicago Yael Levin, Second Vice-President, JCSA Hebrew University Ellen Burton Harrington, Secretary, JCSA University of South Alabama David Mulry, Web Master, JCSA College of Coastal Georgia Kim Salmons, Book Review Editor, JCTSt. Mary’s University, Twickenham Chris GoGwilt, Past President, JCSA Fordham University Debra Romanick Baldwin, Past President, JCSA, and Trustee University of Dallas Brian Richardson, Past President, JCSA University of Maryland John Peters, Past President, JCSA University of North Texas Andrea White, Past President, JCSA California State University, Dominguez Hills Carola Kaplan, Past President, JCSA California State University, Pomona Paul Armstrong, Past President, JCSA Brown University Richard Ruppel, Past President, JCSA Chapman University Hunt Hawkins, Past President, JCSAUniversity of South Florida Robert Caserio, Trustee, JCSA Pennsylvania State University Julie Beth Napolin, Trustee, JCSA Eugene Lang College, New School University Katherine Isobel BaxterUniversity of Northumbria Robert Hampson, Royal Holloway, University of London
MLA business meeting, dinner, and JCSA panel on "Conrad's Politics of Hope." The business meeting and dinner will take place on Friday, January 4th at 6:30 pm at Bistronomic, a French restaurant located at 840 North Wabash (a few blocks west of the landmark Water Tower on Michigan Ave. and a 20-minute walk from the Hyatt Regency). The price is $60 ($25 for graduate students). Drinks will be free of charge thanks to an anonymous donation to the Society. For reservations and to make a secure credit card payment, please request a PayPal invoice (preferred method; no personal PayPal account required) by writing to Mark Larabee at mdlarabee@gmail.com by 15 December. To pay by check, please send an email to Mark to make your reservation, and send a check (made out to "The Joseph Conrad Society of America") to him at P.O. Box 1052, Silverdale, WA 98383.
2017: The Return of Conrad
2017, which marks the 160th anniversary of Conrad’s birth, has been recognized by the Polish Parliament as the year of Conrad, with funding announced, and a call for cultural and artistic projects in Poland to celebrate and promote Conrad’s life, work, and heritage. See the Embassy announcement for further details.
A note from the JCSA President, Paul Armstrong:
I am writing to share some news from this winter’s business meeting and dinner at the MLA convention in Philadelphia. The dinner was a delightful, convivial affair at the Buddakan restaurant (thanks to JCSA Vice President Peter Mallios for organizing it). Appropriately for its name, the restaurant featured a statue of a mammoth Buddha which, reminding all of us of Marlow on the deck of the Nellie, glowered at us impassively as we conducted our business. I am glad to report that this had no effect on the buoyant mood of the festivities!
The election of the new Second Vice President was announced: Joyce Wexler, professor of English at Loyola University Chicago, a long-time JCSA member and past trustee. Joyce’s new book Violence Without God: The Rhetorical Despair of Twentieth-Century Writers has just been published by Bloomsbury (2017). After two-year terms as Second and First V.P., Joyce will serve as President of the Society in 2021-22.
Three new trustees were elected at the dinner for three-year terms: Katherine Baxter (University of Northumbria at Newcastle), Julie Beth Napolin (Eugene Lang College, New School University), and Seamus O’Malley (Yeshiva University). They replace the three trustees whose terms ended at the dinner: Anne Luyat, David Mulry, and Stephen Ross.
Jennifer Janechek, a doctoral student at the University of Iowa, was presented with the 2016 Bruce Harkness Young Scholar Award for her outstanding essay “The Horror of the Primal Sound: Proto-telephony and Imperialism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” which is forthcoming in The Conradian. Honorable mention was awarded to Jarica Watts, assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University, for her excellent essay “‘What Could His Object Be?: Form and Materiality in Conrad’s ‘The Tale,’” which is forthcoming in the collection Conrad and Nature, edited by Jack Peters, Jeff McCarthy, and Lissa Schneider-Rebozo and scheduled for publication by Routledge.
It was also announced that Robert Hampson’s book Conrad’s Secrets (London: Palgrave, 2012) has won the 2015 Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies. Second place was awarded to Wiesław Krajka’s edition From Szlachta Culture to the 21st Century, Between East and West: New Essays on Joseph Conrad (East European Monographs, 2013), and third place went to John G. Peters for his book Joseph Conrad’s Critical Reception (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Several proposals for the JCSA’s guaranteed special session at the 2018 MLA Convention were discussed, and the proposal selected was “Conrad: Autocracy and War.” Organized by Anne Luyat and Debra Romanick Baldwin, this session will explore Conrad’s understanding of the politics of fear and its consequences in the eponymous essay and its companion works including The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. A nonguaranteed session “Precarious Lives in Conrad and Ford” has also been submitted as a joint effort of the Ford Madox Ford Society and the JCSA, organized by myself and Seamus O’Malley, the president of the Ford Madox Ford Society and a new JCSA trustee.
I am delighted to observe an extraordinary amount of international conference activity devoted to Conrad this coming summer and fall. Immediate past JCSA president Chis GoGwilt has organized a conference at Fordham in early June entitled “Conradian Crosscurrents: Creativity and Critique,” also hosted by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York and the Kościuszko Foundation. In addition to the annual meeting of the Joseph Conrad Society (U.K.) in London, the Société Conradienne Française has issued a call for papers for a conference “Between Texts and Theory: Transnational Conrad” to be held in September at the University of Limoges, with the support of the Associazione Italiana di Studi Conradiani. The Joseph Conrad Society of Japan will hold its third international conference in Tokyo in November.
I look forward to seeing many of you at our next annual dinner and business meeting at the 2018 MLA Convention in New York City.
All best wishes,
Paul Armstrong (May 2017)
David Miller, who many will know fondly from the UK Conrad society meetings, has just passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, after suffering a heart attack on Christmas Eve. David was loved by many, and known for his boundless and irreverent wit, and his searching love of all things Conrad.
He came to Conrad studies from a distinctive perspective as a highly respected literary agent in London. In his own right, along with criticism on Conrad, he was the author of Today, a novel recounting Conrad's death, and recently edited, That Glimpse of Truth, an anthology selection of fine short fiction. Those who knew him will remember a man so full of life that it beggars belief to think of him gone. Here is a tribute from The Bookseller.
Adam Gillon Book Awards: Robert Hampson has been awarded the first place prize for the Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies for 2015 for Conrad's Secrets (London: Palgrave, 2012). Second and third place winners are respectively: 2) From Szlachta Culture to the 21st Century, Between East and West: New Essays on Joseph Conrad’s Polishness edited by Wiesław Krajka (East European Monographs, 2013); and 3) John G. Peters' Joseph Conrad's Critical Reception (Cambridge University Press, 2013). All the winners will be celebrated and the first-place prize formally awarded at the Joseph Conrad Society of America's annual business meeting to be held at the Modern Language Association's annual convention in January 2017.
MLA business meeting, dinner, and JCSA panel on "Conrad's Animals. The business meeting and dinner will take place on January 6th at 6:30 pm at Buddakan, 325 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. The price is $55 ($25 for graduate students). For reservations and to make a secure credit card payment, please request a PayPal invoice (preferred method; no personal PayPal account required) by writing to Mark Larabee at mdlarabee@gmail.com by 15 December. To pay by check, please send an email to Mark to make your reservation, and send a check (made out to "The Joseph Conrad Society of America") to him at P.O. Box 1052, Silverdale, WA 98383.
The Ian P. Watt Prize for Excellence in Conrad Scholarship for 2015 is awarded to J. Hillis Miller for his many contributions to the study of Joseph Conrad's work, ranging from his seminal readings of "Heart of Darkness" and Lord Jim in Poets of Reality (Harvard, 1965) and Fiction and Repetition (1981) to his recent work on Nostromo in Communities of Fiction (Fordham, 2014). A collected volume of his essays on Conrad is currently being co-edited by Jakob Lothe and John G. Peters.
The Bruce Harkness Young Scholar Award for 2015 is awarded to Jay Parker (PhD candidate at Leeds University) for his essay "'He was one of us': Rortyan Liberal Ethnocentrism and Ironic Narrative Voice in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim." Honorable mention is given to Brendan Kavanagh for "'Dirty weather': Typhoon's Metereology and MacWhirr's Point of View."
Robert Caserio and Jarica Watts were elected as Trustees (from an especially strong and competitive roster of potential trustee candidates). Congratulations to them and thanks to the outgoing trustees, Brian Artese and Alexia Hannis.
The Society approved the submission of three panels for next year's MLA: Conrad's Animals, proposed by Stephen Ross, will be the Society's guaranteed panel; Conrad and Mimetic Theories, proposed by Nidesh Lawtoo, will be submitted as an additional, non-guaranteed session; and Conrad and Lawrence at Sea, proposed by Joyce Wexler, will be submitted as a collaborative session in collaboration with the D. H. Lawrence Society. (See our website, or the MLA site for the CFP's for these panels.)
Please send relevant news items to David Mulry at dmulry@ccga.edu
