May 25-28, San Francisco CA.
Panel: “Trauma, Grief, and Recovery in the Works of Susan Glaspell.”
Chair: Mary E. Papke, University of Tennessee.

Modernist artists of the 1910s and 1920s famously captured in their work the cultural trauma and mourning of those who lived through World War I. Susan Glaspell throughout her very long career focused on the legacy of that and other wars as well as on a number of other national political traumas and catastrophic individual losses. The range of trauma Glaspell explores is great, from the death of children (for instance, in The Verge), the loss of family (Fugitive’s Return), the loss of self in madness or self-erasure (The Road to the Temple) to the loss of intellectual and political ideals (Inheritors) and the national trauma suffered in wartime (Judd Rankin’s Daughter). This panel explored specific cases of personal and collective trauma, loss, and, in some cases, recovery in the drama and fiction of Susan Glaspell.

Papers:  “Glaspell, Freeman and Twain: Varied Voices in Magazine Fiction, 1913-1918,” Colette Lindroth, Caldwell College;

“Embodied Loss: Absence and Presence in Susan Glaspell’s Inheritors,” Monica Stufft, University of California at Berkeley;

“The Deracinated Self: Immigrants and Orphans in Susan Glaspell’s Fiction,” Martha C. Carpentier, Seton Hall University.

WITASWAN celebrated the 25th anniversary of the release of Sally Heckel’s Oscar-nominated film of “A Jury of Her Peers” in Chicago in March 2005. Sally conducted a post-screening Q&A at the Chicago Cultural Center, followed by a lecture by Patricia Bryan & Tom Wolf (authors of Midnight Assassin: Murder in America’s Heartland).

A few months later, on September 28 2005, Linda Ben-Zvi addressed the Illinois Women’s Press Association at the University Center, Chicago, reading from her new biography Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times, and also directing students from De Paul University’s Theatre School in selected scenes from Inheritors, Suppressed Desires, and Trifles.

Both events were organized by WITASWAN (Women in the Audience Supporting Women Artists Now), a nationwide initiative dedicated to eliminating the celluloid ceiling that continues to restrict opportunities for women filmmakers, coordinated by Jan Lisa Huttner.

“Where It All Began,” June 15-20,Provincetown MA.

Susan Glaspell and Eugene O’Neill were brought together again in their beloved Provincetown, as the Susan Glaspell Society participated in the Eugene O’Neill Society’s 6th International Conference, June 15-20, 2005. Linda Ben-Zvi gave the keynote address on Friday June 17, “The Place of Provincetown in Glaspell’s Writing,” and the Glaspell Society hosted a wine-and-cheese reception following the Provincetown Fringe Festival’s second annual Susan Glaspell play-reading marathon on Friday, as well as sponsoring a panel on Saturday and a roundtable on Sunday. Many thanks to O’Neill Society President Zander Brietzke and Vice President Steven Bloom for their warm welcome and the chance for scholars of these two founders of American drama to come together.

Susan Glaspell first came to Provincetown in the summer of 1912. When she married Jig Cook in 1913, they returned and the next year bought a house at 564 Commercial Street that was to be Glaspell’s home for the rest of her life. In Provincetown she found a community of like-minded artists and writers who provided her with the intellectual support and understanding her Davenport, Iowa family and friends were unable to offer. It is, therefore, not surprising that Provincetown, its setting, people, and history played a significant role in her writing. In her presentation Prof. Ben Zvi discussed Glaspell’s life in Provincetown and the ways in which she depicts elements of the locale and specific
residents in her plays and fiction.

Susan Glaspell Society Panel: “New Approaches to Susan Glaspell’s Theatre,” June 18.  Chair: Martha C. Carpentier, Seton Hall University.

Papers: “Susan Glaspell’s ‘The Plea’: Foreshadowing Trifles and Concerns About Law and Justice,” Patricia L. Bryan, University of North Carolina Law School;

“A Trembling Hand, a Rocking Chair, and a Rocking Chair or Kitchen Sink: Glaspell, O’Neill and their Early Dramatic Experiences,” Lucia V. Sander, University of Brasilia;

“Woman’s Honor and the Critique of Slander Per Se,” J. Ellen Gainor, Cornell University;  

“Writing for the Provincetown: Glaspell’s ‘New Woman’ in Chains of Dew,” Barbara Ozieblo, University of Malaga.

Susan Glaspell Society Roundtable: “Susan Glaspell in Context,” June 19.  Moderator: Linda Ben-Zvi, Tel Aviv University.

Sunday’s roundtable discussion took place at the Pilgrim Monument museum. Participants Marcia Noe, Cheryl Black, Sally Heckel, J. Ellen Gainor, Sharon Friedman, Basia Ozieblo, and moderator Linda Ben-Zvi held an animated discussion that included audience members and ranged from the future of Glaspell studies to the relationship of Susan Glaspell and husband Jig Cook.

May 26-29, Boston MA.
Panel: “Four Decades of Fiction at the Forefront: Susan Glaspell’s Critique of American Ideology.”
Chair: Martha C. Carpentier, Seton Hall University.

Papers: “Evaluating America: Cultural Commentary in Susan Glaspell’s Magazine Fiction,” Colette Lindroth, Caldwell College;

“Susan Glaspell’s Last Word on Democracy and War,” Mary E. Papke, University of Tennessee;

“Susan Glaspell and the Epistemological Crisis of Modernity: Truth, Knowledge, and Art in Selected Novels,” Kristina Hinz-Bode, Universitat Kassel, Germany.