Attend the 2024 Milton Society Annual Dinner
For the first time since the pandemic, we will be gathering in person for our Dinner and Meeting, as we honor MSA award winners and this year’s Honored Scholar, Dennis Danielson. The 2024 MSA Dinner and Meeting will take place in the West Annex Room of the Berghoff Restaurant in Chicago on Friday, March 22. Doors to the cash bar will open at 7:00 p.m., with dinner starting around 7:30. Please feel free to join us at the cash bar even if you are unable to stay for the full meeting.
Purchase tickets below ($90 for tenured faculty, $70 for others; wine and beer included) by Friday, March 8. You’ll be prompted for the number of tickets you’d like after clicking the button:
News
In 2020 the MSA commissioned the British artist Richard Kenton Webb to produce a series of 12 charcoal and pencil drawings titled A Conversation with Lycidas by John Milton (https://richardkentonwebb.art/milton-lycidas-2020/). This commission came about as result of Richard’s work on his much larger project, A Conversation with John Milton’s Paradise Lost,’ containing close to 200 works (drawings, linocuts, & paintings), which is now been made available as an online flick book by a London art dealer and gallery, Benjamin Rhodes Arts. Richard Adlington wrote a brief forward to the flick book and heartily recommends the work to MSA members, and especially those interested in the history of illustrations of Paradise Lost. You can find the flickbook here: https://shorturl.at/yKQW2.
MSA Vice-President Amrita Dhar sends word of two recent publications: “They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Write, or, How Milton Read Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” Shakespeare Survey 77; and “Madhusudan’s Miltonic Epic, The Meghnādbadh kābya” in Milton Across Borders and Media, edited by Angelica Duran and Islam Issa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), pp. 143-160.
MSA members will be happy to hear that Jason Rosenblatt and his co-editor Joshua Eckhardt have completed editing John Selden’s Table Talk and are about to publish the manuscripts asThe Discourse of John Selden with Oxford University Press. MSA members can find David Norbrook’s review of Jason’s recent John Selden: Scholar, Statesman, Advocate of Milton’s Muse (Oxford UP, 2021) in Milton Quarterly 57.3 (2023):899.
Life Member Roy Houghton reports that he recently viewed a video of a professor in London asking passerby near the British Parliament whether they recognized the face in the copy of the Faithorne portrait of Milton that he was carrying. Roy writes, “Surprisingly hardly anyone knew or recognized who the portrait was of. Here in Milton’s own home town he is an unknown. or so it seems. I’m sure if the professor held a portrait of Shakespeare there would be a 100% recognition.” Roy suggests that MSA pursue a PR program to get the word out not only about Milton’s poetry but about his ultimately successful advocacy, for the right to divorce, freedom of the press, separation of church and state, etc.
Congratulations to Lynne Greenberg, who has been promoted to Professor of English at Hunter College, CUNY.
Swelling our ranks
An excellent idea from our incoming president, Amrita Dhar, who urges us to recommend MSA membership to our academic friends/colleagues/graduate students who aren’t members yet. There are many scholars actively engaged with Milton who are not yet members of MSA and who could enrich our conversations. Spreading the word by mouth and friendship is possibly the best means to bolster our ranks.
RSA Chicago — March 21-23, 2024
MSA will once again sponsor sessions at RSA next year, and I’m delighted to share the news that we will resume our in-person MSA Annual Dinner. News of location, date, and time will follow as the Executive Committee finalizes plans. The MSA will sponsor the following sessions:
350 Years of Paradise Lost, A Poem in Twelve Books
Wendy Furman-Adams (Whittier C): “Visualizing Paradise Lost, 1688-2000”
Marissa Greenberg (U of New Mexico): “Is Paradise Lost Still Radical? Or,How Ursula K. Le Guin Adapts Milton”
Laura Lunger Knoppers (U of Notre Dame): “‘Tears such as Angels Weep’: Milton, Blake, and Sympathy for the Damned in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, Director’s Cut (1992)”
Lauren Shohet (Villanova U): “Paradise Lost: An anniversary in 350 years”
Milton and Disability
Maura Brady (Le Moyne C): “Mental Disability and Slavery in Milton’s Prose Polemics”
Amrita Dhar (Ohio State U): “The Access Poetics of Paradise Lost, 1667-1674”
Jen Mylander (San Francisco State U): “Disability, Embodiment, and Learning in Paradise Lost”
Pasquale Toscano (Princeton U): “The Head of a Dog or Horn of a Rhino: Meaning, Milton, and Me”
Milton and the Uncertain Restoration
Jason Kerr (Brigham Young U), “Milton and the Troublesome Theology of Vows”
Tomos Evans (U of Birmingham), “Writing about Milton in 1660”
Edward Jones (Oklahoma State U), “Milton in the Early Years of the Restoration”
Milton’s Place in the Profession (Roundtable)
Hyunyoung Cho (George Mason U, Korea)
David Currell (American U of Beirut)
Hao Tianhu (Zhejiang University)
Emily Jones (U of South Florida)
Islam Issa (Birmingham City U)
Reminders
We love sharing the good news of our members’ publications, career changes, and other professional news and accomplishments. And if you encounter interesting Miltoniana your wanderings, virtual or otherwise, we’d love to share that too! Just drop us a line using our easy Update form (on the home page and also available here.)
And while we are in reminder mode, the MSA offers an array of awards–books, book collections, and articles–some of which come automatically under consideration (e.g., articles in journals such as Milton Quarterly and Milton Studies) but some of which require nomination/self-nomination. We also hope-hope-hope some of you will consider nominating your graduate students as our Labriola award has been vacant for several years. Check out the Submission Guidelines for Awards, and email MiltonSocietySec@gmail.com as questions arise.
Steve Fallon, MSA President
Amrita Dhar, MSA Vice-President