Celebrating Roth on what would have been his 86th birthday:

The "Roth Remembered" Conference is just a few weeks away. Down below is the conference schedule. A reminder about registration. The conference registration fee is $150 ( $75 for students, retired faculty, and independent scholars). Registration payments can be sent via Paypal at the following link: www.paypal.me/rothremembered

If you'd prefer to mail a check, it can be sent to the following address:

The Philip Roth Society

c/o Matthew Shipe,

Roth Society President

Washington University in St. Louis

Campus Box 1122

One Brookings Drive

St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

If you'd like to verify that your payment arrived, please contact Matthew Shipe at mashipe@wustl.edu.

“Roth Remembered” Sponsored by the Philip Roth Society, the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History at New York University, & the Center for Jewish History

April 7th-9th, 2019 New York, New York

*** Sunday April 7th

All Sunday panels & events will be held at the Goldstein-Goren Center (53 Washington Square S)

9:00am-10:15am

Roth and American Politics

Chair: Brett Ashley Kaplan

Andy Connolly: “Moral Outrage and Liberal Elitism in the Works of Philip Roth”Dan Dufournad: "Zuckerman's (Negative) Dialectics in I Married a Communist"

Elèna Mortara: "About Meeting with Roth and Editing His Works in Italy"

Patrick Hayes: “Philip Roth and Pleasure”Hilene Flanzbaum: “Roth’s Holocaust and Jewish-American Literature”Andrew Dean: “Roth’s Comedy and the Good”Respondent: Benjamin Schreier

Representations of Women

Chair: Maren Scheurer

Joshua Lander: "Mother Matter in Philip Roth's Fiction"Amber Manning: “A Vibrant Reckoning”

Victoria Aarons: “Self-Representation and the ‘Ruthless Intimacy of Fiction’: Roth Reimagined in the Fiction of Others”

Steven Sampson, “Ghetto Envy: Philip Roth's European Pastoral"Jack Knowles:

Hasia R. Diner, New York UniversityLila Corwin Berman, Temple University

"'How the Other Half Lives': 'Writers from the Other Europe'

and Philip Roth's Turn to American History"

'Metamorphosis' in Roth's Novel: A Play With Classical

***

Monday April 8th

All Monday panels will be held at the Center for Jewish History (15 W. 16th St) The Reception & Keynote Address will be held at the Goldstein Goren Center

9am-10:15am

The Politics of Race and Ethnicity

Chair: Andy Connolly

Cristina Cheveresan: “A Jew without Jewishness”: (Re)Negotiating Cultural Heritage and (Trans)National Selfhood in Philip Roth’s The Counterlife"Richard Elliott: "Roth and Race in The Human Stain"

Jacques Berlinerblau: “Metempsychosis: Philip Roth's Grand Theme?"

Matthew Shipe: “The Dying Animals: Lateness and Desire in Philip Roth’s Everyman and The Humbling”Paule Lévy: “The Rest is the Madness of Art:” Desire and Absence in The Prague Orgy”Steve Rosenstein: "Jack Smith, Straight – Mickey Sabbath and the Reclamation of “Masculine” Performance in Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater"

Masculinity and Desire

Chair: Debra Shostak

Narrative Theory and Narrative Medicine

Chair: Elèna Mortara

Miriam Jaffe: "Philip Roth's Narratives of Medicine: The Mind-Body Problems of Men and Women"Pia Masiero: “Patrimony: Philip Roth’s legacy as a writer”

RL Goldberg: “Miltonic Figurations of Incest and Disobedience in Philip Roth’s American Pastoral”Maggie McKinley: “Rothian Empathy in American Pastoral”

Danny Anderson: "Philip Roth as Horror Writer"

*** Tuesday April 9th

All Tuesday panels will be held at the Center for Jewish History (15 W. 16th St)

9-00am-10:15am

Roth on Film

Chair: Steve Rosenstein

Lluvia de Segovia: "Stainless Steal: Whitewashing the Stain in the Film Adaptation of Philip Roth's Indignation"

Amanda Greenwell: “Citizenship and the Child Gaze in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America"Brittany Hirth: “Roth’s America: Identity and Individualism”

• Jim Bloom: “All Along the Siegfried Line: Roth and Salinger”

Roth’s Voices

Chair: Gerard O’Donoghue

Daniel Goodman: "Enter Ghost: The Presence of Shakespeare in the Work

of Philip Roth”

Mike Witcombe: "'The most fraught human interaction there is: On Adelle

Waldman and Philip Roth"

Sophie Bernard: "Oral style and memory: a study of the polyphony in The Human Stain”Li Lin: "The Blending of Fiction, Biography and Vignettes in Philip Roth's Later Novels”

Andy ConnollyMatthew ShipeMaggie McKinley

The Philip Roth Society would like to sincerely thank the faculty and staff at the Center for Jewish History and the Goldstein Goren Center for American Jewish History for their generous help and support in planning this conference.

Keynote Speakers

Elisa Albert is the author of two

novels and a short story collection.

Her stories and essays have appeared

in Tin House, The Guardian, The New

York Times, The Literary Review, The

Paris Review, Guernica, and many

anthologies. She lives in upstate New

York and is currently Visiting Writer

at Bennington College.

Charles McGrath is the former editor of The New York Times Book Review and former deputy editor of The New Yorker. He is currently a writer-at- large for The New York Times.

The new edition of De Fiore's Philip Roth – Fantasmi del desiderio (Philip Roth - Ghosts of Desire) has just been published in Italy. A description of the book is down below:

Philip Roth. Fantasmi del desiderio Jews of America, the main alter egos of Philip Roth carry on their shoulders the diaspora, the Shoah, the Prohibition and the dream of the New Deal, the authoritarian temptations of Lindbergh and Nixon. They lived through McCarthyism and segregation, the New Culture and the sexual revolution, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the two "Desert Storms". In their eyes, the lightning of the Boeings against the Twin Towers, the 9.11 burning and the oath of the first African-American President. Luciano De Fiore traces the supply chain of the great writer's novels, interweaving life and writing through the lens of desire. In Philip Roth’s work, in fact, the maintenance of the desiring dimension is what preserves the subject’s division, allowing it to remain healthy. "Counterlife" is the word to which he entrusts the contradiction of living, perfectly embodied by its protagonists, always ambivalent in their progress between life and counterlife.

Introduction of Antonio Monda.

Print Length: 232 pages Publisher: Castelvecchi Publication Date: October 31, 2018 Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC Language: Italian ISBN-10: 8832824914 ISBN-13: 978-8832824919

About the author Luciano De Fiore (1955) teaches History of Modern Philosophy at Sapienza, University of Rome. He deals with philosophy, psychoanalysis, art, and scientific publishing. Among his latest publications: The deserted city. Reading the Absolute Knowledge in Hegel’s Phenomenology of spirit (2012), Even the sea dreams. Philosophy and Waves (2013), Practical Answers, Holy Responses. Pasolini, Time and Politics (2018).

David Simon, of The Wire fame, is producing a six-part adaptation of Roth's 2004 novel.More news here:

Irena Pavlásková is directing an adaption of Roth's The Prague Orgy. It will be released in the fall of 2019.

Richard Dickerson, who is Professor Emeritus at UCLA, is working on a project on "Our Gang" and would like help from Society members who are familiar with Roth's take down of the Nixon administration. Prof. Dickerson, writes, "Posting on the Society webpage my questions about identities of the pseudo-named characters in “Our Gang” sounds like an excellent idea. One never can tell just who might have taken an interest in the identities of the characters. Even if the responses disagree, they would be of interest."

If you'd like to respond to contribute to this project please contact Prof. Dickerson at redic392@gmail.com

Here's Prof. Dickerson's Chart:

Characters in Roth’s “Our Gang”

(approximately in order of appearance in book)

Gov. George Wallow of Alabama George Wallace

Trick E. Dixon Richard Nixon

Mr. Asslick

Robert F. Charisma Robert Kennedy

John F. Charisma John F. Kennedy

Mr. Daring

Attorney General Malicious John N. Mitchell

FBI Director J. Edward Heehaw J. Edgar Hoover

Mr. Respectful

Mr. Shrewd

Vice President What’s-his-name Spiro T. Agnew

Secretary of Defence Lard Melvin R. Laird

Secretary Codger William P. Rogers (Sec. of State)

Secretary Fickle Walter J. Hickel (Sec. of Interior)

Miss Charmin’

President Lyin’ B. Johnson Lyndon B. Johnson

Mr. Practical

Mr. Catch-me-in-a-Contradiction

Mr. Fascinated

Mr. Reasonable

Mr. Hardnose

Gov. George Wallow of Alabama George Wallace

Sen. Hubert Hollow of Minnesota Hubert Humphrey

Sen. Joseph McCastrophe Joseph McCarthy

San Dementia, CA San Clemente, CA

General Poppapower General Eisenhower

Jacqueline Charisma Colossus Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

NY Mayor John Lancelot John Lindsay

Pitter Dixon Pat Nixon

Prissier, CA Whittier, CA

Teddy Charisma Ted Kennedy

President’s Bilge Secretary, Blurb Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler??

Eric Severhead (newsman) Eric Sevareid, CBS news

Roger Rising-to-the Occasion

Morton Momentus (in Chicago)

Peter Pious (Los Angeles)

Ike Ironic (New York)

Brad Bathos (newsman)

Congressman Fraud

Reverend Billy Cupcake Billy Graham

__________________________________________________________

Italic = Descriptive name; may not refer to any specific real individual

Essay focuses on Roth and Nicole Krauss:

CFP: 2018 Siegel McDaniel Award for Graduate Research on Philip Roth

The annual Siegel/McDaniel Award, sponsored by the Philip Roth Society, recognizes high-quality graduate student work written within the past year on any aspect of Philip Roth’s work.

We recommend that faculty encourage their students to submit papers, and we welcome submissions from Roth Society members and non-members alike.

Eligible graduate students should submit a clean copy of their 10-15 page essay, double-spaced, in 12 point Times New Roman font to Maggie McKinley, the Philip Roth Society Program Director, at mmckinle@harpercollege.edu.

The deadline is November 30, 2018.

The winner of the Siegel/McDaniel Award receives:

a $300 cash awarda complimentary membership renewal that includes the journal option for the following yearan opportunity to work with the editors of Philip Roth Studies to publish an expanded version of the essay.

The executive board members of the Philip Roth Society will evaluate all entries and notify entrants of their decision.

This award is given in honor of the work of Ben Siegel and John McDaniel, two of the earliest and most influential Roth scholars in the history of American letters.

We are extending the deadline for proposals for our upcoming Roth Remembered conference; proposals now need to be submitted by October 1. Proposals (not exceeding 250 words) for individual papers should be emailed to the Roth Society Program Chair, Maggie McKinley, at mmckinle@harpercollege.edu. Proposals for full panels (three or four papers) will also be accepted. Please include institutional affiliation and full contact details. If you’re interested in chairing a session please let us know.

Announcing the results of our election; the Society board for the next three years (2018-2020) will be:

1)President--Matthew Shipe 2) Program Director--Maggie McKinley 3) Treasurer--Brittany Hirth 4) Membership Chair--Danny Anderson 5) Secretary--Mike Witcombe 6) Newsletter Editor--Andy Connolly

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses Philip Roth in new interview:

Exciting news from Society member Olga Karasik, whose essay, entitled "Philip Roth in Russia: Translations and Reception," was recently published. The article follows the history of translations, publications and critical reception of Philip Roth’s works in the USSR and Russia since the 1960s until nowadays taking into account the changing historical situation and ideological guidelines in the late 20th and the early 21st century. The paper also considers the reasons that prevented the timely introduction of Roth and his works to Russian readers. The link to the English version of the article is down below:

We are delighted to announce that Aimee Pozorski and Maren Scheurer have been named the new editors of Philip Roth Studies. They will begin their duties in Spring 2019. We are very excited that Aimee, who is a former President of Roth Society, and Maren have agreed to take on this post, and we very much look forward to what they will bring to the journal. We are also deeply grateful for all the work that Debra Shostak and David Brauner have put into the journal during their five year tenure.

Maren Scheurer is a postdoctoral teaching and research fellow at the Departments of Comparative Literature and English and American Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. She studied Comparative Literature, English Studies, and Psychoanalysis in Frankfurt and York (UK) and holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Goethe University Frankfurt (2016). Her research interests include the relationship between psychoanalysis and contemporary literature, theater, and television as well as the transformations of realism in late nineteenth century literature. She has published numerous articles on these subjects and co-edited an issue of Philip Roth Studies with Aimee Pozorski on Philip Roth’s Trans-Disciplinary Translations.

Aimee Pozorski holds a Ph.D. in English from Emory University (2003) where she also earned a certificate in psychoanalytic studies. She has authored Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works (Continuum), Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature (Bloomsbury) and is completing a third trauma monograph entitled AIDS-Trauma and Politics (Lexington). She has edited or co edited numerous volumes on the topics of Philip Roth, American Modernism, and HIV/AIDS representation. Her areas of expertise include contemporary American literature, trans-Atlantic modernism, theories of trauma and ethics, and narrative medicine. She is Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, where she also directs the English graduate program and co directs American Studies.

Call For Papers: “Roth Remembered” Conference

April 7-9, 2019

The Philip Roth Society is pleased to announce a call for papers for “Roth Remembered,” a conference organized in conjunction with Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History at New York University and the Center for Jewish History, to take place April 7-9, 2019 in New York City. The conference will take place on NYU's campus and at the Center for Jewish History, which is a short walk from NYU's campus. This three-day conference will feature a multi-disciplinary consideration of Roth's career and legacy, and will feature a keynote address by Charles McGrath, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review and former deputy editor of The New Yorker who is currently a writer-at-large for The New York Times. The novelist Elisa Albert, author of the short story collection How this Night is Different (Free Press, 2006) and the novels The Book of Dahlia (Free Press, 2008) and After Birth (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), will also give a talk on Roth’s legacy.

As Zadie Smith wrote in her own remembrance of Roth in The New Yorker, “Sheer energy—Roth’s central gift and the quality he shared with America itself—is his legacy to literature, and it will always be there, ready to be siphoned off or mixed with some new element by somebody new. That Rothian spirit—so full of people and stories and laughter and history and sex and fury—will be a source of energy as long as there is literature.” Paper and panel proposals for “Roth Remembered” might engage with this idea of the “Rothian spirit,” addressing any element of Roth’s work with an eye to his legacy and lasting contributions to American literature, culture, politics, and history. Specific topics could include (but are not limited to): engagement with American politics in fiction and nonfiction; humor and irony; literary style and craft; Roth’s international presence; contributions to the confessional style; representations of gender and sexuality; a consideration of the groundbreaking Portnoy’s Complaint after 50 years; literary predecessors and inheritors; representations of Jewish American history and identity; and Roth’s alter-egos.

Proposals (not exceeding 250 words) for individual papers should be emailed to the Roth Society Program Chair, Maggie McKinley, at mmckinle@harpercollege.edu. Proposals for full panels (three or four papers) will also be accepted. Deadline for proposals is September 15, 2018. All participants will be notified of their status by October 1, 2018. Please include institutional affiliation and full contact details. If you’re interested in chairing a session please let us know.

To present a paper as a part of a Roth Society panel, participants must be members of the Philip Roth Society. For membership information, please see the Society’s website at http://rothsociety.org.

Danny Anderson, our current Membership Director and host of the great Sectarian Review podcast invited Society President Matthew Shipe and Michial Farmer, who teaches at Crown College, to discuss all things Roth. The link to the podcast is down below.

We will continue to post links to notable reflections on Roth's career. If you come across a piece feel free to send the information on the link to mashipe@wustl.edu

Down below are links to a few more stories on Roth's legacy:

David Remnick: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/04/philip-roths-propulsive-force?reload=true

Chronicle of Higher Education: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Do-We-Know-Philip-Roth-/145671?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=0fffff6238bd4f4abde1366ae81d0f36&elq=ed82013fca0c43c7969070e9748c8fb1&elqaid=19227&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8737

Shaul Magid: https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/shaul-magid-on-phillip-roth

Megan Garber: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/the-day-the-genius-died/561029/

Dana Horn: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/opinion/sunday/philip-roth-jewish-women-new-jersey.html

Frpm the May 25 New York Times:

With tribute coming in celebrating Roth's life and career, we wanted to begin collecting some of the more memorable pieces. Here are few links to a few of the tributes that appeared last week.

Village Voice: https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/05/23/goodbye-colossus-remembering-philip-roth/?utm_source=The+Village+Voice+-+THE+FRONT+Weekly+News&utm_campaign=7506f322e3-The+Front+5%2F24%2F2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8fefc94a02-7506f322e3-59326481

Alexandra Schwartz: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reading-and-wrestling-with-philip-roth

Zadie Smith: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/philip-roth-a-writer-all-the-way-down

Charles McGrath: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/obituaries/philip-roth-dead.html

Cynthia Ozick: https://www.wsj.com/articles/appreciation-philip-roth-1527283291?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

We are deeply saddened to learn that Philip Roth passed away last night at the age of 85. Tributes to Roth have been coming in this morning. Down below is the link to Dwight Garner's tribute in the New York Times. We will post more tributes as they come in.