Records of the Bread Loaf School of English, 2009

2009·28.5 MB·

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> The 4
Bread Loaf
School of English
Summer Programs
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Summer.2009:
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Vermont 2009 Course Schedule
8:45 — 9:45 daily (1 hour)
7182 Describing the Imagination (I) Mr. M. Armstrong
7625 Religion & 20th-Century American Novel (IV) Ms. Hungerford
7638 Twentieth-Century African American Narrative (IV) Mr. Nash
7650a The Contemporary American Short Story (IV) Mr. Huddle
10:00 — 11:00 daily (1 hour)
7107 The Language Wars (I) Ms. Lunsford
7215 The King James Bible (II or V) Mr. Shoulson
7263 Shakespeare and Middleton (II) Mr. Cadden
7307b The Rise of the Novel (II) Mr. Noggle
7362 Things, Artefacts 19th-Century Novel (III) Ms. I. Armstrong
7584 African American Poets of the Modern Era (IV) Mr. Stepto
7691 Realism and the Documentary Impulse (IV) Ms. Blair
11:15-12:15 daily (1 hour)
7103 (I) Ms. Goswami with Mr. Sax Barn 1
7106 The Graphic Novel: Word, Image, Sound, Silence (I) Ms. Lunsford Barn 5
7295 Paradise Lost and the Question of Context (II) Mr. Shoulson Barn A
7300 The Comedy of Desire.... & 18th-Century Literature (III) Mr. Noggle Barn East
7437 Trauma and the Literature of Survival (III) Ms. Sokoloff Barn 6
7515 Identities in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction (IV) Mr. Nash Barn 3
7591b William Faulkner (IV) Ms. Wicke Barn 4
7750 War and Peace (V) Mr. M. Armstrong Barn 2
Monday, Wednesday 2-4:45 (2 % hours with 15 minute break)
7000b Poetry Writing (I) Mr. Muldoon Barn 5
7005a Fiction Writing (I) Ms. Tudish Barn 4
7005b Fiction Writing (I) Mr. Strong Barn 3
-7018 Playwriting (I) Mr. Clubb Barn East
7203 The Subject of Romance (II) Ms. Wells Barn 6
7246 | Shakespeare, Nature and the Human (II) Mr. Watson Barn 2
7439 The Poetry of W.B. Yeats (II) Mr. Luftig Barn 1
7800 Directing Workshop (VI) Mr. MacVey Barn A
Tuesday, Thursday 2-4:45 (2 % hours with 15 minute break)
7000a ‘Poetry Writing (I) Mr. Huddle Barn 5
7006 Non-Fiction Writing (I) Ms. Tudish Barn East
7275 Pulp Fictions: Jacobean Tragedy & Amer Film... (II or IV) Mr. Cadden Barn 1
7280 Metaphysical & Cavalier: Poetics & Politics 17th-C... (I) Mr. Watson Barn A
7430 Virginia Woolf and the Art of Bloomsbury (III) Ms. Green-Lewis Barn 4
7452 The Age of Hitchcock (III) Mr. Freedman Barn 6
7780 Twentieth-Century Global Novel (V) Ms. Wicke Barn 2
7790 Varieties of Modern Indian Prose (V) Ms. Sabin Barn 3
Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont
Opening Night, June 23, 2009
John Elder and Andrea Lunsford (in bold)
Good evening. My name is John Elder. My esteemed comrade Andrea Lunsford
and I will be co-Acting Directors of Bread Loaf/Vermont for the coming summer.
Andrea and I would like to welcome you all warmly to the opening of this 90" session of
the School of English. We extend a special greeting to Ron Liebowitz, the President of
Middlebury College; to Michael Geisler, the Vice President for the Language Schools,
the Schools Abroad, and the Graduate Programs of Middlebury College; to Dan Breen,
the Director of Development, Graduate and Special Programs at Middlebury; and to other
distinguished guest from Middlebury College; thank you for joining us this evening.
We also joyfully greet all the new and returning members of this extraordinary
faculty and of our wonderful acting troupe, as well as the staff members whose creative
efforts make this campus such a pleasant and convenient home for our community. And
at the center of the whole session that begins tonight are of course our 256 new and
returning students. Summer after summer for 90 years, your predecessors, and now you,
have arrived to signal the start of a remarkably intense and rewarding season of reading,
writing, and thinking about teaching. We’re so glad to see you all, and also to meet the
partners and families who have come along with some of you for the ride.
John and I will be sharing the duties of Acting Director this summer because
Emily Bartels, who was scheduled to serve in this capacity while Director Jim
Maddox is on leave, had to cancel her plans for medical reasons. Thus, as long-time
members of the Bread Loaf faculty we were asked to step in for the next six weeks.
Our goal is to serve the immediate needs of this wonderful institution and at the
same time to sustain the superb legacy of our friends Jim and Emily; we all look
forward eagerly to their return.
Every year at this event all of us in the Little Theatre wait to see what voices
from the collective unconsciousness, or from People magazine, will be channeled in
Emily’s talk. Here she is tonight, in her own words:
“90 years. 90 years. In 1919, a few innovative thinkers at Middlebury
College invented the BLSE, turning what had been a Victorian resort (bequeathed
to the college by Joseph Battell) into a place where “teachers and students of the
English language and literature” could study literary criticism, composition,
teaching, expression, and theater. Now here we are, in many of the same buildings
(the yellow ones), pursuing roughly that same agenda some 90 years later.
“This is not a School of Math, but I think we can all appreciate what a
remarkably long time 90 years is for something to endure, especially something as
experimental, if not as revolutionary, as a work intensive (now we tell you) summer
school of “English”--not to mention one named after a mountain shaped like a loaf
of bread (hence Bread Loaf School of English, in case you missed it). (Be careful
where you wear that BL T-shirt, by the way; no one quite gets it.)
[Still channeling Emily!] “Think about other events or phenomena that had their
beginnings 90 years ago and are leaving their marks on us now:
--in England, an opportunity for women to get a degree from Oxford University;
--in the States, the League of Women Voters;
--Ponzi schemes, which in their first incarnation 90 years ago caused six major
banks to fail;
--immunity to the H1N1 virus that had precipitated flu pandemic in 1918 (which
is great news in the face of swine flu, ify ou are 90, or a mouse—don 't ask);
--on a lighter note, Maybelline mascara, designed first and continuing now to
create (as the original ad put it) “eyes that glow with enchantment”;
--and of course, a US post office ruling that prevents us from mailing children by
parcel post (you can’t make this stuff up).
“Here we are, a six-week “school of English” that, unlike any other English
graduate program, brings the fields of literature, writing, pedagogy, theater, & creative
arts imaginatively together within a truly interdisciplinary curriculum.
“Here we are, along with our peers at Bread Loaf campuses in NC, NM, and
England, doing what 90 years ago someone at Middlebury College thought it was
important to do—our eyes still “glowing with the enchantment” of that enterprise,
mascara or no mascara.”
Just one more historical perspective to add to these provided by Emily. In recent
years, Joseph Battell has finally been getting appropriate attention in these ceremonies—
not just as the man who built the Bread Loaf campus and presented it to Middlebury
College but also as the author of Ellen, or the Whisperings of an Old Pine. It’s our hope
that Battell will soon become as central to the literary culture of the school of English as
Frost, his younger contemporary. Of the many strengths of his writing, dialogue may be
most notable. When the young woman Ellen and her wise tutor, the rugged white pine
named Old Piney, commune on Bread Loaf Mountain, Battell artfully has both of them
refer to each other—and to themselves—in third person. This brings a weird drama to
their stirring Socratic dialogue about physics and theology. While we wish we could read
more, here’s a representative extract from the scene in which Piney tries to make Ellen
believe he supports a materialistic theory of the universe:
“Scientists say that mind is or may be a mode of motion, brought about by life,
and rising from the brain very much as steam from water, or as fragrance from a flower.”
“And the old Pine thinks that this stuff would have creative power?”
“The old Pine doesn’t think at all. He is only asking questions, and letting Ellen
do the thinking.”
“And Ellen thinks he is getting crazy, with such foolish questions.”
“But the scientists ask such questions, a though they could not be answered, and
they are very great men.”
“Very ignorant men. For, as Socrates said: ‘It isn’t those who do not know
and know that they do not know that make the trouble, but those who do not know
and think they do’.”
“Well, the old Pine was only striving to get the facts.”
“Asked Ellen lots of foolish questions. Ellen got awfully scared about him.
Afraid he was losing his wits.”
“But, Ellen, the old Pine doesn’t know of any way to get at the truth but by trying.
It is the bold mariner only who makes discoveries.”
Though it’s hardt o break off from such a fiery passage, we hope that by
presenting it as a dramatic dialogue we’ve demonstrated Battell’s place in what might be
called the school of discursive passion. We won’t be surprised to see Ellen appearing on
future Bread Loaf syllabi, right between Wuthering Heights and Women in Love.
But, getting back to the present, it is clear that something enduring goes on
at Bread Loaf, something that can be enjoyed, sustained, and revised by us -now &
for next 90 years. Indeed, this past weekend, some 200+ members of the Bread Loaf
community, past and present (including representatives from the class of 1953)
came back to celebrate our 90" reunion--to recreate and remember the curricular
and extracurricular activities and conversations that ultimately “are” BL. (Let us
pause for a moment to thank Sandy LeGault for heroically organizing the reunion).
Tonight we start again, on our next 90 years (And Emily suggests that we
assure the new students that it won’t take quite that long to finish the degree), as
convinced as ever that we are doing some things here that will continue to endure.
Our agenda for this evening is to introduce ourselves to each other and share our
senses of what we’re doing here.
Let’s start the introductions, then, with the President of Middlebury College, Ron
Liebowitz. It’s easy to remember exactly how long President Liebowitz has been at the
college, since a week ago he was inducted in the 25-Year Club. He arrived here both as a
squash-player of catlike reflexes (as I can personally attest) and as a dynamic young
member of the Geography Department with a special expertise in the Soviet Union.
Though the nation on which his research had focused blew apart on the winds of history,
his scholarship and service to the college both continued to evolve in exciting ways.
Since becoming ae and, five years ago, President of Middlebury, Ron has always
been a strong champion of Bread Loaf School of English. He has supported our
programs and campus in many important ways, as well as taken many steps to make the
facilities and services down in Middlebury more accessible to those of us on the
Mountain. We’re very grateful to President Liebowitz for his efforts on our, and happy
for the chance to hear a few words from him this evening.
[Ron L. speaks here.]
Thank you, President Liebowitz, for being with us tonight and for your
remarks.
We would now like to introduce the Bread Loaf faculty. Would faculty
members stand and remain standing until we have introduced everyone, and would
all please hold your rapturous applause until the end:
Isobel Armstrong
Michael Armstrong
Sara Blair
Michael Cadden
Dare Clubb
Jonathan Freedman