This symposium will explore Walt Whitman, his work and his life, from various perspectives. The keynote, “Whitman Getting Old,” will be given by Ed Folsom (Iowa), co-director of the Whitman Archive and editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review and the Whitman Series for the University of Iowa Press.

Participants include Nancy Bentley (UPenn), Max Cavitch (UPenn), Matt Cohen (UNebraska, Lincoln), Jay Grossman (Northwestern), Tyler Hoffman (Rutgers), Virginia Jackson (UCalifornia, Irvine), Heather Love (UPenn), Meredith McGill (Rutgers), Don James McLaughlin (UTulsa), Peter Stallybrass (UPenn), Michael Warner (Yale), Edward Whitley (Lehigh), and Michael Winship (UTexas, Austin).

The symposium will begin on Friday, March 29, at 4 pm, with “Printing Whitman at the Common Press, Penn’s Letterpress Studio,” followed by the welcome and keynote at 5:30 pm, and a reception and pop-up exhibition from Penn’s Whitman Collection at 6:30 pm.

Saturday’s symposium will run from 9:30 am (coffee and light breakfast) to 6 pm, with four speaker sessions, a viewing of the pop-up exhibition, a student panel, and final reflections on “Late Whitman and Early Afterlife: The Good Gray Poet,” moderated by Peter Stallybrass.