 Dear Milton Society Members, I am happy to report on our recent and future events. MSA Dinner MSA members gathered in person for the Annual Dinner of the Milton Society of America at the Renaissance Society of America 2025 Conference in Boston. Several scholars were honored with MSA Awards, and Sharon Achinstein shared her powerful vision of our shared project of intellectual inquiry in her speech as the Honored Scholar for 2024. After having served brilliantly on the Executive Committee, and then as Vice President and President, Amrita Dhar will be turning her attention to other projects. I know that you will all join me in thanking Amrita for her inspiring and skillful service over these many difficult years, which have included both the pandemic and a plethora of political challenges to our research and educational institutions. I will try to follow in her adroit and spirited footsteps. At the dinner, the MSA also welcomed our new Vice President, Emily Griffiths Jones, as well as two new members of the Executive Committee: Ari Friedlander and Jeffrey Shoulson. Happily, Marissa Greenberg will continue on as Secretary and Lauren Shohet as Treasurer—as many of you know, their behind-the-scenes work year after year keeps this organization thriving. Conferences The Call for Papers for next year’s MSA-sponsored panels at the Renaissance Society Annual Conference, is now available. The deadline to apply is July 1, 2025. The RSA will be held in San Francisco, February 19-21, 2026 (please note the earlier than usual date this year). This year’s proposed sessions are “Who’s Afraid of Areopagitica? Milton and the Revolutionary Reader, Once More”; “Pleasure Regained: Having Fun with Milton”; and “John Milton: A General Session.” Please spread the word to all interested colleagues. The MSA will also sponsor a General Session at the MLA. Reminders The final deadline for awards is June 1, 2025. More information can be found on our website. This round of awards includes our new Barbara Lewalski Award, which recognizes a distinguished scholarly article that examines the afterlife of Milton or his works. By “afterlife,” the MSA means Milton’s influence on subsequent writers, artists, and thinkers; transnational reception; rewritings; etc. Since this award is new, articles published in 2023 or 2024 are eligible. Please recommend MSA membership to your academic friends, colleagues, and graduate students who are not members yet. Student membership is only $10! There are so many scholars actively engaged in Milton studies who are not yet members of the MSA and who would enrich our conversations. You are our best ambassadors, so please help us sustain and expand our community by reaching out to colleagues and students. Please also keep in mind non-tenure track colleagues and scholars of Milton in non-professorial roles as you recruit. We love sharing the good news of our members’ publications, career changes, and other professional news and accomplishments. And if you encounter interesting Miltoniana in your wanderings, virtual or otherwise, we’d love to share that too. Just drop us a line using the news update form at the bottom of the home page of the MSA website; the form is also linked here. Best, Erin Murphy Erin Murphy, MSA President Emily Griffiths-Jones, MSA Vice-President Unsubscribe | Manage subscription |
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