The Walt Whitman Initiative honors Ed Folsom‘s brilliant 50-year career as Whitman scholar, teacher and mentor with a discussion of the final section (#52) of “Song of Myself,” a poem that in theory can never end. Whitman scholars Eric Conrad and Matt Miller, both students of Folsom at the University of Iowa, will be joined by WWI president and Folsom mentee Karen Karbiener in a conversation with Ed about #52– where it comes from and where it takes us. We’ll discuss responses to these lines such as W.S. Merwin’s poem “Whoever You Are” and Ed will display selected manuscripts from his own collection. Please join us for what is sure to be a lively exchange!
Ed Folsom is the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at The University of Iowa, editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, co-director of the online Walt Whitman Archive, and editor of the Whitman Series at The University of Iowa Press. He is the author or editor of numerous books and essays on Whitman and other American writers. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Archives. His work has been chosen four times as a Choice “Outstanding Academic Title,” and he has been featured on numerous national radio and television programs about Whitman.
Eric Conrad is the Prep School Assistant Director at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School (NYC) where he also teaches courses on nineteenth-century American literature, memoir, and contemporary fiction. Beginning with his graduate work at the University of Iowa under the direction of Ed Folsom, Eric’s various publications have examined aspects of Whitman’s relationship to the emergence of modern literary promotion in the United States. He is a former managing editor of The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review and currently serves on the advisory board for the Walt Whitman Archive and the Walt Whitman Initiative board of directors. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Matt Miller is Associate Professor of English at Yeshiva University’s Stern College in Manhattan, where he is Chair of the English Department. Known for his work on the American poet, Walt Whitman, his books include a study of Whitman’s writing process in the making of Leaves of Grass and a co-edited volume of his notebooks and journals. Miller is a founding member of the Walt Whitman Initiative and currently serves on the board of directors. He lives in Long Island City, Queens.
Karen Karbiener, president and founding member of the Walt Whitman Initiative, is a Whitman scholar and teaches at New York University. Winner of the Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress and a Fulbright recipient, she has published widely on Whitman and is currently completing a biography of the poet during his New York years. Karen is grateful for Ed’s decades-long mentorship and support as well as the inspiring example Ed sets as an active, involved teacher-scholar.
We look forward to seeing you for the livestream on our YouTube channel on August 11th from 5 to 6 pm (EST).