“Archives and Institutions”

Harvard English Fall Graduate Symposium

November 2–3, 2023

Thursday, November 2 | Thompson Room (Barker Center)

5:30–7:00 p.m.: Keynote Address: John Guillory (NYU), "On Close Reading"

Friday, November 3 | Fong Auditorium (Boylston Hall)

Coffee and Refreshments, 9:30 a.m. (Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall)

10:00–11:30 a.m., Panel 1: Archives and Narrative Form

Emily Sun (G5), “Infinite Subjects: Archiving Bodies in Early Medieval English Bestiaries and the Book of Imaginary Beings”

Aditya Banerjee (G1), “Archival Life and Civil Death: Bartleby, the Scrivener and the Archival Institution”

Jocelyn Sears (G6), “Archival Logic and Open Time in The Handmaid’s Tale”

Respondent: Derek Miller (Harvard)

Lunch, 11:30 a.m. –12:30 p.m. (Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall)

12:30–2:00 p.m., Panel 2: Institutions and the Archive

Robin Singh Arya (G1), “"Literary Prize Culture and Post–Cold War Cultural Diplomacy: A Case Study of the Russian Booker Prize for 1992”

Elinor Hitt (G4), “Shades in the Archive: Tanaquil Le Clercq and the George Balanchine Papers”

Jack Rodgers (G1), “Widener’s Tomb: Excavating Harvard’s Subterranean Archive”

Respondent: John Guillory (NYU)

2:30–4:00 p.m., Panel 3: Poetry, Race and Book Culture

Sunbinn Lee (G1), “Writing Biographies in the Black Atlantic Archive: The Case of Amelia Newsham and Lyric Address”

Wyatt Sarafin (G5), “Mourning in Public: Souls of Black Folk and the Performative Book”

Jeffrey Careyva (G6), “Self-Portrait in a Pile of Books: Cataloging John Ashbery's Reading Library”

Respondent: Kelly Mee Rich (Harvard)

4:30–6 p.m.: Please join us for a reception in the English Department following the conference!