Dear Milton Society of America member,

If you’re like me, you are very much looking forward to a relatively normal academic year, at least in an epidemiological sense. And with in-person conferences ahead, it’s heartening to know that our scholarly conversations will continue outside the virtual realm. In fact, judging from our panels at MLA and the submissions to the International Milton Symposium (over 250, which might be a record), the conversation is growing. Miltonic interest is high!

MSA Happenings

Membership Rates and Renewals

As a reminder, no annual dues are required of those for whom the cost is a financial burden, including but not limited to non-tenure track/contingent faculty and individuals from nations/institutions with very limited research support. Dues are also not required of honored scholars of the society, life members, and retirees.

In other words, even if you can’t pay dues, please sign up or renew! We’d like to have you as an official member. (Our e-commerce site doesn’t understand $0 dues, but just drop an email to MSA Secretary Eric Song [esong1@swarthmore.edu] and Treasurer Lauren Shohet [lauren.shohet@villanova.edu].)

For those who are in a position to donate beyond our membership fees, the MSA very much appreciates your support. Donations help defray expenses for the annual banquet and business meeting, the cost of printing the annual booklet, as well as popular events such as the happy hours with free drinks and hors-d’ouevres we’ve sponsored at MLA and RSA in years past. Here are the current rates:

Regular annual membership, $25.00
Graduate student membership, $10.00
Life member, $250.00

Current life members who wish to contribute yet more to the society may become “Uncouth Swains” with an additional donation of $250.00.

The Society is an exempt organization under the IRS code and all donations are tax-deductible in the USA.

Milton Society of America First Book Assistance (MSA FBA) Program

As a reminder, the Milton Society of America provides annually a single $500 reimbursement to support the publication of an outstanding first book devoted substantially to John Milton. The prize recognizes the originality, scope, and scholarly rigor of the book chosen. Applicants must belong to the Milton Society of America. Applicants need not hold the Ph.D.; those who do must have completed their Ph.D.s no longer than six years prior to applying.

The reimbursement may be used to offset costs from the press associated with copy-editing; preparation of an index; permissions for photographs, artwork, and the like; color reproductions; and preparation of graphs and maps. Ineligible expenses include computer and other equipment, travel, and income replacement. The reimbursement is intended to aid scholars undertaking an original, first-time, book-length work in Milton studies. No anthologies, chapters, essays, edited collections, etc., will be considered for this funding.

The application consists of

• A cover letter indicating that the applicant has a completed manuscript
• A provisional or final contract
• An abstract of the book,
• A sample chapter

The successful applicant will be required to

1. send to the MSA Treasurer a) a completed MSA FBA Form and b) an invoice or invoices from the press for costs incurred during the application year and/or the subsequent year.
2. acknowledge the support of “the Milton Society of America First Book Assistance Program” in the publication.

Applications should be sent by June 1 of the year in which the grant will be awarded to the MSA Secretary, Eric Song (esong1@swarthmore.edu). Applicants will be notified by the following November 1.

Member Updates

Please remember to keep us informed of your publications, awards, and events! Click here to submit any updates for inclusion in the newsletter, or just email us directly at one of the addresses below.

Passages

Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear . . .

Michael Lieb, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of many books on Milton, passed away on August 2^nd. A tribute to his academic accomplishments was posted by UIC here; many more personal remembrances and tributes to Michael as a mentor have been shared on Milton-L.

Career changes

Amrita Dhar is moving from the Newark campus of the Ohio State University to the main OSU campus, which, while not an actual career change, is close enough to a promotion to deserve mention here.

Member Publications, Talks, Awards, and Activities

1. Miklós Peti’s book on the communist reception of Milton in Hungary, Paradise from Behind the Iron Curtain. Copies—including an open-access electronic version–available here.  

2. James Grantham Turner‘s book The Villa Farnesina, Palace of Venus in Renaissance Rome is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press; in an invited talk at the University of East Anglia (May 2022) he explores the possibility that Milton saw this famous villa and internalized his visual memories of it when creating Paradise.

3. Stephen Dobranski has edited a new, affordable edition of Paradise Lost, published by W. W. Norton. It contains extensive notes, modernized spelling, and a thorough introduction. More details here.

4. Feisal G. Mohamed’s essay “On Race and Historicism: A Polemic in Three Turns,” which includes a consideration of Samson Agonistes, was publishedin ELH 89:2 (Summer 2022).

5. Seth Lerer’s “Milton’s Ad Patrem and the Poetics of Virgilian Sons” was published in Renaissance Quarterly 75:2 (Summer 2022)

6. The latest issue of ELR 52:2 (Spring 2022) has an article by Tamara A. Goeglein, “Emblematic Tabernacles in John Donne, John Milton, and the Antwerp Polyglot Bible,” which will surely be of interest to MSA members.

7. The latest issue of Studies in Philology 119:3 (Summer 2022) has not one, but two articles on Milton:

• Matt Rickard, “Milton and the Education Monopoly
• John Yargo, “Milton’s Postures: Prostrating, Grinding, Leaning”

Good news from the 2022 Conference on John Milton:

• Jason Kerr’s “Milton and Theology: Reflections on De Doctrina Christiana and Paradise Lost” won the Kristin A. Pruitt and Charles W. Durham Award, for best paper at the conference

• Tomos Evans’s “Milton and Byzantine Homeric Scholarship: Eustathius, Tzetzes, and Homeric Problems in Paradise Lost Book 2″ won the Kevin Donovan Award, for the best paper by a graduate student at the conference

MSA@MLA 2023

1. Panel: Developing Genres in and from Milton’s Works

Panelists will discuss the work of researching, teaching, and publishing John Milton’s writings within our current realities: adjunctification, lower demand for courses in literature from earlier periods, and the dearth of positions for Milton specialists.

Speakers

• Tomos Evans (U of Birmingham)
• Sam Hushagen (U of Washington, Seattle)
• Erin Spampinato (Colby C)
• Jenny Tan (University of Pennsylvania Press)
• Reginald A. Wilburn (Texas Christian U)

Presiding

• Jeffrey Miller (Montclair State U)

Until next time, friends—
 
Alison (achapman@uab.edu – MSA president)

Brooke (b.conti@csuohio.edu – outgoing MSA president)