Threads run through American literature. They come in all kinds: some have been acknowledged by the writers themselves, others have been identified by academia. The aim of this conference is to show that the link between a nineteenth-century novelist, Harriet Beecher-Stowe (1811-1896), and a twentieth-century, poet John Beecher (1904-1980), is not merely genealogical. The theme “forms and reform” is an invitation to trace thematic and formal continuities beyond generic and chronological boundaries and examine these authors’ problematic inclusion in and exclusion from the canon with a view to eliciting fresh scholarly attention to their work.

        In spite of the publication in 1980 of John Beecher’s Collected Poems, his work was neglected for many years. But One More River To Cross, a new “Selected Poems” edited by Steven Ford Brown and brought out by NewSouth Books in 2003, has made available again for reappraisal the work of one in turn dismissed as no poet at all or celebrated as “an American hero.” As for Harriet Beecher Stowe, the need to reread Uncle Tom’s Cabin seems particularly acute in the wake of three recent publications (Gregg Crane’s The Cambridge Introduction to The Nineteenth-Century Novel [2007], Sarah Robbins’s The Cambridge Introduction to Harriet Beecher Stowe [2007] and The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Hollis Robbins [2007].) Both authors therefore bear some relevance to the present.

Among the features common to both writers and worth examining are:

• their obvious concern for slaves in the case of Harriet Beecher Stowe and for workingmen, particularly African-Americans, in the case of John Beecher. Such priorities account for an inclination to preach common to both authors. To various degrees, their works qualify as protest literature but are also informed by religion. Another tension worthy of exploration is that between sentiment and politics. Are these balancing acts successful? What is the political and religious relevance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in today’s America? How religious do John Beecher’s politics sound to those who call themselves the Progressives of the 21st century? Should ‘the Beechers’ be considered as ultimately engineering social stability rather than radical reform? Surely they were not Anti-moderns in Antoine Compagnon’s understanding of the term—or were they?
• an apparent  disinterest in formal innovation or just a taste for well-tried literary forms. But was it really the case, or did they simply choose to take their pick among available middle-of-the-road contemporary forms as their priorities lay elsewhere? Besides, is preaching out of bounds in literature? Where exactly does the border run between rhetoric and literature? Can the preaching, progressive thread(s) in John Beecher’s and Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s writings be tied to other significant works of American literature?
• their being a part of the Southern heritage for different reasons, although their roots lay in the North. How does John Beecher’s poetry tie into the some-say-non-existent Southern poetry tradition? What do Southern Studies have to say about the evolution of the assessment of Beecher-Stowe’s work?  How do both writers’ attempts at writing the Southern idiom look and sound today?

       The purpose of this conference is to provide the opportunity for a joint reassessment of these two writers. Priority will be given to papers showing an interest in bringing out continuities in American literature.

     Proposals of about 300 words to be sent to Guillaume Tanguy (guillaume.tanguy@univ-montp3.fr) and Vincent Dussol (v.dussol@wanadoo.fr) by September 30th 2008, along with a short biographical note. Selected papers will be considered for publication.

                                                                Download PDF of American Threads

                                                         Conference Organizers

 Vincent Dussol

A translator of American poetry (Ed Dorn, DiPalma, Fanny Howe, Charles Olson),Vincent Dussol wrote his dissertation on Thomas McGrath. After reading the latter's rave review - published in Dacotah Territory - of Beecher's Collected Poems, he determined to organize – some day – a conference that would contribute to the Alabama poet’s better recognition: the time has come!

Guillaume Tanguy

Guillaume Tanguy’s PhD thesis  was on W.D. Howells. He has published articles on nineteenth century American literature, particularly on the works of Stephen Crane (“La logique noire de Stephen Crane,” Profils américains 18, 2005) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (“Hawthorne et ses métalepses”, Transatlantica 1, 2007, http://www.transatlantica.org/document1601.html). He is currently working on a special issue of Profils américains (to be published in 2008-2009) on W.D. Howells.