MLA Lawrence Session Topics/Papers
History of the DHLSNA
The D. H. Lawrence Society was officially inaugurated in
December of 1975 at
the Modern Language Association (MLA) in San Francisco. (The MLA is the premier organization of literature
teachers of America.) At that meeting,
James Cowan was elected the first president and George Zytaruk the vice
president or president-elect. The Society grew out of a series of MLA
seminars Cowan convened, and Zytaruk wrote and presented the initial charter
for The D.H. Lawrence Society (See DHLR, Spring vol. 9.1 of 1976,
167-68). The first annual meeting occurred in December of the
following year at the MLA in New York. To avoid confusion with other
Lawrence societies around the world, the name quickly changed to D.H.
Lawrence Society of America; and then, at the December 1980 MLA in Houston,
the name officially became the D.H. Lawrence Society of North America (DHLSNA),
although current society members live and work all over the world. Lawrence sessions at the annual MLA Convention from
1980 on (listed below) have been organized by DHLSNA and
recorded in issues of its Newsletter.
Besides holding the annual MLA sessions, the Society has
actively participated in all of the twelve International D.H. Lawrence
Conferences to date (as well as taken the lead in organizing several).
Lawrence societies around the world have collaborated to hold conferences in the following
locations: Tufts (Boston), 1985; Shanghai, 1988; Montpellier, 1990; Paris,
1992; Ottawa, 1993; Nottingham, 1996; Taos, 1998; Naples, 2001; Kyoto, 2003;
Santa Fe, 2005; Eastwood, 2007; and Sydney, 2011. As authorized by
the Co-ordinating Committee for International D.H. Lawrence Conferences (CCILC), the
13th International DHL Conference will be held
in Gargnano, Italy, in June 2014.
The Society's Newsletter
was first published as a biannual supplement to the D.H. Lawrence Review
(Spring vol. 10.1 and Fall vol. 10.3 of 1977 and Summer vol. 11.2 of 1978)
until it became a self-sustaining separate publication in Fleda
Brown Jackson's term as editor--and continued so under the editorship of Eleanor Green, Nancy Paxton, Julianne Newmark,
and now Pamela Wright. The Newsletter went electronic in 2011
and an online archive of back-issues
became available in 2012.
D. H. Lawrence Societies also exist in England, Japan,
Korea, Australia, and Italy; and significant Lawrence scholarship comes from
more than a dozen other countries, as well. The Reception of D. H.
Lawrence Around the World, ed. Takeo Iida (Fukuoka: Kyushu University
Press, 1999), surveys such scholarship in Britain, the United States,
France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan,
Korea, China, and India (see review). The Reception of D. H. Lawrence in Europe,
ed. Christa Jansohn and Dieter Mehl (London: Continuum, 2007), furthers the
comprehensive look at the reception in Europe. A rich tradition of
Lawrence scholarship in Africa is also traced in D. H. Lawrence Around
the World: South African Perspectives, ed. Jim Phelps and Nigel
Bell (Empangeni: Echoing Green, 2007). Another book of general
interest is one published by the MLA: Approaches to Teaching the Works of
D. H. Lawrence, ed. Elizabeth Sargent and Garry Watson (New York: Modern
Language Association of America, 2001), with essays and teaching approaches
by more than 30 scholars/teachers.
The massive Lawrence Edition, with 45-plus volumes, is
completing the scholarly publication of Lawrence's works in 2013
(Cambridge University Press).
Also, feel free to visit our
Memorial Page set up to honor deceased DHLSNA members and other
noteworthy Lawrentians.
Selected MLA
Session Topics on D.H. Lawrence
(Detailed listing of Papers provided
in Archive)
1980: D.H.
Lawrence Studies After Fifty Years (Houston, TX)
See Details
1981: Lady
Chatterley's Lover: Reappraisals of Context (New York)
See Details
1982: From
the Miner's Kitchen to the Court of Israel: The Plays of D.H.
Lawrence (LA) See Details
1983: Lawrence's
Short Fiction (New York)
1984: Lawrence
and Criticism (Washington, DC)
1985: The
Influence of D.H.
Lawrence (Chicago) See Details
1986:
Mr Noon
See Details
1987: D.H.
Lawrence Among the Moderns (San Francisco)
See Details
1988: D.H.
Lawrence and Politics, Sexual and Otherwise (New Orleans)
See Details
1989 (two sessions): The Cambridge Edition
(Washington, DC) &
Lawrence and Psychology
See
Details
1990:
Lawrence and the Body (Chicago) See
Details
1991: Lawrence
and Current Narrative Theory (San Francisco)
See Details
1992: Lawrence
Encountering the Americas (New York)
See Details
1993: Lawrence
and the Ideologies of Change (Toronto, Canada)
See Details
1994:
Women in Love
Reconsidered (San Diego) See Details
1995: Reconsiderations
of the Feminist Case against Lawrence (Chicago)
See Details
1996: Lawrence's
Letters (Washington, DC) See
Details
1997: The
Problem of Lawrence in the Academy (Toronto, Canada)
See Details
1998: Subverting
the Norms (San Francisco) See
Details
1999 (two sessions): Modern, Postmodern: D.H.
Lawrence and Doris Lessing (Chicago) &
The
Postcolonial Lawrence (Chicago) See
Details
2000:
Lawrence and the Millennium: The Prophetic Vision (Washington, DC)
See Details
2001: D. H.
Lawrence: The Sacred and Profane (New Orleans)
See Details
2002: Lawrence
and Ecology (New York) See Details
2003 (two sessions): Lawrence and the Spirit of Place,
I (San Diego) &
Lawrence and the Spirit of Place, II (San
Diego) See Details
2004 (two sessions):
Lawrence and America: Crosscurrents (Philadelphia) &
Lawrence and America: New Perspectives (Philadelphia)
See Details
2005 (two sessions): Lawrence as Poet (Washington, DC)
&
Lawrence's
Nonfiction Writings (Washington, DC) See Details
2006 (two sessions):
D. H. Lawrence and the Body (Philadelphia) &
D. H.
Lawrence and His Contemporaries (Philadelphia)
See Details
2007 (two sessions):
D. H. Lawrence and Film (Chicago) &
Eugenics,
Fascism, and D. H. Lawrence (Chicago) See Details
2008 (two sessions): Masculinities
in Lawrence (San Francisco) &
D. H.
Lawrence and Violence (San Francisco) See Details
2009 (two sessions): D.
H. Lawrence's Short Stories (Philadelphia) &
D. H.
Lawrence's Circle (Philadelphia) See
Details
2010: MLA
meetings changed from December to January--see entry for 2011.
2011: Queering
Lawrence (Los Angeles) See Details
2012: 50 years after the Lady Chatterley Trial: Lawrence
&
Censorship/Pornography/Obscenity (Seattle)
Details
2013:
Suggested panel topics under consideration for future MLA
conferences:
Lawrence & Modernism
Digital Lawrence
Lawrence & Science
Lawrence & War
Lawrentian Utopias/Dystopias
List of papers given at Lawrence
sessions
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