Emily Dickinson International Society
Annual Members' Meeting
Clark 309, Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
August 4, 2012
9:30-10:30 a.m.
1. President's Report
President Jonnie Guerra opened the Emily Dickinson International Society Members' Meeting at 9:45 a.m. Thirty-one members were present.
Guerra had new attendee Dongxin Qin introduce herself.
Guerra started the meeting by sharing information and announcements from the annual business meeting of the EDIS board of directors. She added that a few reports would be presented, and after that, members could express issues and concerns.
Guerra announced that the Society now has a new registered agent who lives in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, James Fraser, and that the Society now has a corporate clerk who handles EDIS paperwork for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Diana Fraser.
She introduced EDIS's newly-elected member-at-large for the EDIS Board of Directors, Eliza Richards.
President Guerra reported that the board had almost completed a revision of the bylaws to bring them in line with the Society's current practices. The EDIS bylaws will be available on the EDIS website for members to read sometime in the fall.
Guerra announced that EDIS has named its Graduate Fellowship Awards for Karen Dandurand, who participated in one of the Great Debates panels in the Amherst annual meeting last year. She said that EDIS was very sad to learn of her passing shortly after the 2011 meeting.
Guerra summarized plans for several upcoming meetings:
The August 2013 EDIS International Conference will be held at the University of Maryland and American University in Washington, DC, on August 9-11, 2013.
EDIS's yearly meeting in 2014 will be back in Amherst, Massachusetts. The theme will be "Emily Dickinson and New England Writers." This meeting will have an Institute format as an earlier Amherst meeting had employed. For this, people will submit papers to present for feedback. Elizabeth Petrino and Alexandra Socarides will organize the Institute, and further information will follow. Tentative dates for this meeting are August 8-10, 2014.
The annual meeting in 2015 will be held on the Monterey Peninsula in California. Dates, specific location, and theme have not been set.
In 2016, the year of EDIS's next International Conference, the Society is planning to meet in Paris.
Guerra asked that anyone with suggestions for sites of future annual meetings please speak to her or to another board member. She also asked for information about any local events here or abroad that have to do with Emily Dickinson. Martha Nell Smith asked that any announcements of local events be sent to the EDIS website so that the Society can publicize the particulars in a timely manner.
President Guerra brought greetings from Jane Wald, Cindy Dickinson, and the staff at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although no one from the Museum was able to attend this year's EDIS meeting, they sent an information sheet that will be available for members after this meeting.
Guerra presented two exciting items from the Museum's report. First, the Emily Dickinson Museum recently helped to sponsor a poetry marathon on Mackanac Island, in Michigan, with 400 people in attendance. Second, the original stone floor of the Homestead's basement was recently uncovered.
Guerra also reported that the EDIS board voted to give a gift of $1,500 to the Museum specifically to help them match a $25,000 grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to design a fire suppression system. The EDIS board also voted to give $1,000 to the Jones Library in Amherst.
Guerra announced that anyone interested in telling his or her story of connection with Emily Dickinson may submit that story to Georgianna Strickland at to appear in the series, "What's My Story?" in the EDIS Bulletin.
In the absence of Nominations Committee Chair Suzanne Juhasz, Guerra announced that the current officers of the EDIS board were reelected:
Jonnie Guerra President
Martha Nell SmithVice President
James FraserTreasurer
Nancy List PridgenSecretary
2. Approval of the Minutes of the July 31, 2011, Meeting
Nancy List Pridgen presented the minutes of last year's EDIS members' meeting, reminding members that they had a copy of last year's minutes in their packets for this year's annual meeting.
Pridgen submitted these minutes for approval. Jane Eberwein made a motion for acceptance, Paul Crumbley seconded it, and the motion was approved.
3. Treasurer’s Report
James Fraser reviewed the EDIS treasurer's report for the members and told them a copy of the report was available if they wanted one. Fraser pointed out that the fiscal year extends from July 1 to June 30 of the next year. EDIS started out with a balance of $11,891 and ended with a balance of $14,453, a plus of $2,472. The Society took in approximately $26,000 and spent $23,000. Fraser said that EDIS came out ahead — another good year.
He pointed out that though some years the Society has had to pay a large sum to Johns Hopkins University Press, for the past two years EDIS did not have to pay anything.
Guerra pointed out that the Society receives financial credit for the number of people who access the EDIS Journal online. She stressed the importance of associate memberships to EDIS. For those who do not need to have a hard copy of the Journal, joining EDIS at the associate member level brings in the full $20 to the Society. Fraser pointed out that a $50 full membership brings EDIS just $12.50 after JHUP takes money to pay for publishing the Journal.
4. Nominations Committee Report
(Suzanne Juhasz was not able to attend. See President's Report for information about reelection of officers.)
5. Membership Committee Report
Elizabeth Petrino reported a total of 280 members as of July 1, 2012, and stated that membership will probably increase because of the 2013 international conference.
Petrino reported that the membership form has been updated for clarity, so potential members can join as full members, joint members with the Museum, donating members, with or without joint membership, or associate members.
Petrino said the membership committee would like to send each new member a membership packet, which would contain a letter from the president, a calendar of events, and perhaps a bookmark or other free item. The committee will also be contacting members to notify them of special events. They will be sending email to members who have let their membership lapse, encouraging them to renew.
Petrino said the committee will be looking at the possibility of fundraising and considering levels of donations to EDIS. Guerra suggested the idea of a three-year membership to encourage people who join for an international conference not to let their membership lapse until the next international conference. Smith stated that members consider giving one or more gift memberships.
6. 2013 International Conference
Smith and Marianne Noble reported on the upcoming EDIS International Conference, to be held at the University of Maryland and American University in Washington DC August 9 -11, 2013. Registrants will be staying in the University of Maryland Inn and Conference Center. Room rates will begin at $105 for a cozy room, and rates for conference attendants before and after the conference will be the same.
Smith announced that the call for papers has gone up, and participants are encouraged to present innovative papers, such as Pecha Kucha presentations. The theme is Emily Dickinson World Citizen. The conference will start at the University of Maryland, with the banquet at American University Saturday night. Emily Dickinson International Society 25th Anniversary celebration events will include a play or other artistic presentation. Sunday after the conference, members will have the option to have high tea at the Willard, a hotel Dickinson stayed in when visiting her father during his term as a congressman. Further information is available on the EDIS website, .
7. New Directions Website
Socarides explained that New Directions in Dickinson scholarship group was begun at the 2011 Amherst meeting. Since then Socarides has set up a New Directions in Dickinson Studies website. She posts works of Dickinson scholarship in progress, one every two months, to which those registered on the website can respond. Currently, thirty-four users are registered. In order to register and receive a password, contact Socarides via email at Socarides Alexandra, .
Socarides will continue to post articles for the next year and report what has been produced. A member asked if there could be more information given about what the individual authors of the pieces that appear on the site are looking for, in order to provide more context within which to respond to the papers, or perhaps a more extensive biography of each author.
Smith said that a link will be placed at the top of the EDIS website, and also a link will be placed on the graduate student website recently set up by Kate Dunning.
8. Members’ TalkBack & 9. Announcements
Guerra asked members to make any comments and/or announcements they wanted to make.
Barbara Dana, chair of the Dickinson Committee for the Arts, reported that Georgianna Strickland is still expanding her discography of CD recordings of Dickinson settings. Smith announced that the discography will be on the EDIS website with links to sites where the CDs may be purchased. The discography will be updated yearly. Dana also announced that a list is available of current theater, artistic projects, books, film, music performed but not recorded on CD — anything in the arts that's current. Anyone wanting a copy of this year's lists can get in touch with Dana. Dana also reported that actress Laurie McCants is now a member of the Arts Committee. A series about Dickinson and the arts appears annually in the Bulletin.
Barbara Mossberg announced that she will be doing a series of radio shows on Dickinson, and in two weeks she will have one on this conference. She may do a live broadcast in Washington, DC, during the international conference. Smith said information will be put on the website.
Paul Crumbley, chairman of the awards committee, announced that graduate students and recent PhDs can apply to one of the two awards the Society offers every year, the Scholar in Amherst award and the Graduate Fellowship award.
Smith thanked Crumbley and Guerra for their hard work on revising the bylaws.
Guerra asked Smith the deadline for submission for papers for the 2012 international conference; Smith reported October 31, 2012, and that papers can be sent to Registration for the conference will open at the end of January 2013. Eberwein asked for elaboration about the conference theme. It is Emily Dickinson World Citizen — Dickinson's various forms of belonging and ways in which multiple constituencies belong to her and her world. Though Dickinson saw "New Englandly," she was a cosmopolitan reader and crafted and cultivated numerous affiliations beyond the local. The conference will explore her politics, understanding of citizenship, and engagements with international cultures. Additionally, it explores various cultures' diverse engagements with Dickinson's writing, the global reach of her mind and verse ifrom the 19th Century to the present. More information appears on the EDIS website.
10. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 10:35 a.m.