International Whitman Week
To celebrate Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday on May 31, 2019, International Whitman Week will be held in Whitman’s New York! Please join us for world-class presentations, lively discussions, walking tours and Whitman-centric performances and events. International Whitman Week will be held in various locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn for five days; on Whitman’s birthday, all participants will be transported to the poet’s birthplace on Long Island.
Since its founding twelve years ago, International Whitman Week has been free and is open to the public, space permitting. To reserve a seat for any of the seminar activities (Monday, May 27 through Friday, May 31), please contact conference organizer Karen Karbiener: kk55@nyu.edu. To reserve a seat at the Grolier Club for the all-day symposium on June 1, please email the number of seats required to Grolier Club executive assistant Maev Brennan: mbrennan@grolierclub.org.
PARTICIPANTS
SCHEDULE
Schedule
Monday, May 27: Welcome to Whitman’s New York!
Founders Hall, St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn
8:00-9:00am: check-in, coffee and light breakfast
9:00-10:00am: Welcome by Karen Karbiener, conference organizer. Presentations on Whitman’s Brooklyn:
Karen Karbiener, NYU: “Plumb in the Uprights, Braced in the Beams: Walter Whitman, Brooklyn Housebuilder and Homeowner
Ian Maloney, St. Francis College: “Whitman and Brooklyn: Divine, Original, Concrete”
Jesse Merandy, Bard Graduate Center: “Vanishing Leaves: A Location-based Mobile Game in Whitman’s Brooklyn”
10:00-10:45am: Instructor and student introductions; overview of seminar
11:00am-1:00pm: Brooklyn Heights tour led by Karen Karbiener and Greg Trupiano (Director, Walt Whitman Project).
1:00-2:45pm: Lunch at the Fulton Ferry Landing
2:45pm: assemble at the Henry Street entrance to the 2/3 subway stop at Clark Street, to take the 2 or 3 to Nevins Street stop.
3:00-5:00pm: Fort Greene tour and pilgrimage to 99 Ryerson Street led by Karen Karbiener and Greg Trupiano. Free ice cream courtesy of Ample Hills Creamery
Tuesday, May 28: Leaves of Grass (1855)
NYU Center for the Humanities, 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
8:30-9:00am: coffee and light breakfast
9:00-11:00am: Instructor presentations and q&a
11:00-1:00pm: lunch; at noon, lunchtime presentation of the world premiere of “Song of Ourselves: Cultural Activism in Whitman’s New York”, a documentary by Di Cui. Filmmaker will be in attendance to answer questions
1:00-3:00pm: Small group sessions
3:00-4:00pm: Student-led wrap-up and discussion
Wednesday, May 29: Whitman’s Journalism
NYU Center for the Humanities, 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
8:30-9:00am: coffee and light breakfast
9:00-11:00am: Instructor presentations and q&a
11:00-1:00pm: Lunch
1:00-3:00pm: Small group sessions
3:00-4:00pm: Student-led wrap-up and discussion
6:00-7:00pm: Hands-on letterpress printing demonstration at Bowne & Co., Stationers, 209 Water Street at the South Street Seaport Museum
Thursday, May 30: Leaves of Grass (1860)
NYU Center for the Humanities, 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
8:30-9:00am: coffee and light breakfast
9:00-11:00am: Instructor presentations and q&a
11:00-1:00pm: Lunch; at noon, lunchtime presentation of Live Oak, with Moss (Abrams, 2019) by Brian Selznick and Karen Karbiener
1:00-3:00pm: Small group sessions
3:00-4:00pm: Student-led wrap-up and discussion
5:30-6:30pm: Presentation and q&a, Ed Folsom (University of Iowa), “This is the city…. And I am one of the citizens: Walt Whitman, the Body, and the City” (Grolier Club)
6:30-7:30pm: Curatorial tour of “Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman” with Karen Karbiener and Susan Tane (Grolier Club)
Friday, May 31: Starting From Paumanok: Origins
Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington, New York (bus provided)
7:45am: Bus departure from NYU Center for the Humanities
9:00-10:00am: Bus tour of “Whitmanland”, including ancestral Whitman properties and the Whitman family cemetery in West Hills
10:00-12:00pm: Panel presentation by Jerome Loving (Texas A&M University) and David Reynolds (CUNY Graduate Center)
12:00-1:00pm: Lunch; tours of Whitman Birthplace
1:00-3:00pm: Instructor presentations and q&a
3:00-3:30pm: Conference wrap-up discussion
3:30-5:00: Optional hike to Jayne’s Hill with Karen Karbiener; tours of Whitman Birthplace
5:00-6:00pm: Happy Birthday Hour: a toast to Whitman’s 200th, with wine generously donated by Paumanok Vineyards and cake courtesy of the Whitman Birthplace
6:00-7:30pm: Dinner meeting of Transatlantic Walt Whitman Association; tours of Whitman Birthplace
7:30-8:30pm: Performance of “More Or Less I Am” by Compagnia de’ Colombari
8:45pm: Bus departure from Whitman Birthplace to NYU Center for the Humanities
Saturday, June 1: “Walt Whitman and New York” Symposium
Grolier Club Main Exhibition Hall, 47 East 60th Street, NYPlease note: no eating or drinking in the exhibition hall due to loan requirements for “Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman”
8:30am: Doors open
9:00-9:10am: Welcome by Susan Tane and Karen Karbiener, co-curators, “Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman”
9:10-9:30am: Ken Price, University of Nebraska, Lincoln (co-authored with Nicole Gray, University of Nebraska, Lincoln): “Something Long Preparing and Formless”: Revisiting the 1855 Leaves of Grass.
9:30-11:00am: Panel 1
Kevin McMullen, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, “Whitman Reads New York”
Bojana Acamovic, Institut for Literature and Art, Belgrade, Serbia, “This is the City and He is One of the . . . Barbarians. Whitman’s Urban Poetry and the Concept of Primitivism”
Stefan Brandt, University of Graz, Austria, “Synecdoche, New York 1.0: Masculine Vigor and the National Self in Jack Engle and ‘Manly Health’”
11:00-11:15am: break
11:15-12:00pm: PechaKucha session
Zack Turpin, University of Idaho, “The Sleep-Talker, Proud Antoinette, and Whitman’s Other Lost Books: A City Mystery”
Blake Bronson-Bartlett, University of Iowa, “Graphite’s Dirty Truth: The Pencil in Whitman’s New York Poetry”
Jesse Merandy, Bard Graduate Center, NY, “Walking with Whitman”
Micah Bateman, University of Texas at Austin, “Walt Whitman in/and Occupy Wall Street”
12:00-1:00pm: lunch
1:00-2:00pm: The Dessoff Choirs performance of Whitman song settings (Malcolm J. Merriweather, Conductor)
William Schuman, “Carols of Death”
Douglas Geers, “As Adam Early in the Morning”
Rene Clausen, “Three Whitman Settings”
Eve Beglarian, “None More Than You” (new commission by Dessoff Choirs)
2:00-3:45pm: Panel 2
Teruko Kajiwara, Meiji University, Japan, “Whitman’s Creation of the Fluid Body of a City and Citizens”
Bo McMillan, Columbia University, NY, “Reading Whitman ‘From Shore to Shore’: ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’ as an Infrastructural Poem”
Jessica Skwire Routhier, Panorama (Association of Historians of American Art), “Fellow Journeyers Walt Whitman and Jesse Talbot: Painting, Poetry, and Puffery in 1850s New York”
Dara Barnat, Tel Aviv University, Israel, “Walkers in the City: (Re)reading Walt Whitman through Charles Reznikoff”
3:45-4:00pm: break
4:00-4:20pm: Betsy Erkkila, Northwestern University, “The Whitman Revolution: Why Poetry Matters”
4:20-4:50pm: Video conference call with Whitman200.com gathering at the Bolton Socialist Club (U.K.)
4:50pm-5:00pm: International Whitman Week wrap-up by Karen Karbiener, conference organizer
SPONSORS
The Grolier Club
https://www.grolierclub.org/
New York University Center for the Humanities
https://nyuhumanities.org/
New York University Department of English
http://as.nyu.edu/english.html
New York University Liberal Studies
https://liberalstudies.nyu.edu/
The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation
https://www.rdlgfoundation.org
St. Francis College
https://www.sfc.edu/
Transatlantic Walt Whitman Association
http://transatlanticwhitman.org/
Walt Whitman Birthplace
https://www.waltwhitman.org/
Walt Whitman Initiative
https://waltwhitmaninitiative.org/
Special thanks to our partners and friends
Ample Hills Creamery
https://www.amplehills.com/
Compagnia de’ Colombari
https://www.colombari.org/
Dessoff Choirs
http://www.dessoff.org/
Fort Greene Park Conservancy
http://www.fortgreenepark.org/
Paumanok Vineyards
https://www.paumanok.com/
Walt Whitman Project
http://www.waltwhitmanproject.org/
Whitman’s NYC
https://www.whitmansnyc.com/