By Janice Byrne, July 2016
The July Biennial Conference of the Hemingway Society and Foundation International held at Dominican University revealed much of what is happening in academic institutions across American and indeed the rest of the world. With over four hundred participants, most of whom were academics, the conference sessions abounded with new information about recent research and plans for the future. For example, Kent State University Press has contracted with major scholars for its series on reading Hemingway. Included are books by Marc Cirino, Kirk Curnutt, Larry Grimes and Micahel Roos which will be released individually over a period of the next five years. Meanwhile the letters project at Pennsylvania State continues with volume 4, edited by Miriam Mandel, to be available later this calendar year. Volume 5, to be edited by Robert Trogdon, should appear in another two to three years.
Various institutions have developed Hemingway units and courses for their undergraduate students. Among these are the University of Kansas with its common book program and the US Naval Academy at Annapolis. Numerous sessions on teaching Hemingway also took place on Wednesday, July 20. Among those presenting papers about their own techniques were Michigan Hemingway Society members Fred Svoboda and Janice Byrne. Both spoke about the short stories. These teaching sessions offered continuing education credit for secondary level English teachers attending. Two additional members of the Michigan Hemingway Society Board, Jack Jobst and John Cohassey, also spoke as did John Sanford and Valerie Hemingway. They and numerous others hold dual membership in the International and Michigan Societies, thus putting MHS on a par with the top scholars in the world.
Perhaps most note worth was conference host Dominican University who awarded novelist Tim O’Brien an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree on Tuesday evening. O’Brien commented that he did not want to come to the conference at all but agreed to do so out of friendship with the conference program chair, Alex Vernon, among others. He then went on to deliver a powerfully confessional talk about influences on his own work, including Ernest Hemingway and one s high school special English teacher. O’Brien’s speech was the high point of the conference for most if not all of the participants.
Altogether the Seventeenth Biennial International Hemingway Society Conference provided great insight into what is happening with Hemingway studies throughout the world.