• If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Spring 2015 -- Bondwoman's Narrative

Page history last edited by Cathy Saunders 9 years ago

Mid-Atlantic Region

American Women Writers Study Group

 

21 March 2015

Cambridge, MA

 

 

The Bondwoman's Narrative

 

 

Our Spring 2015 meeting will focus on Hannah Crafts’ The Bondwoman’s Narrative, and our guest for the discussion will be Dr. Gregg Hecimovich, currently a fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, and professor and chair of English at Winthrop University. Dr. Hecimovich is author of the forthcoming The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of the Bondwoman’s Narrative, which details his investigation into the narrative’s history and his efforts to document its author’s identity and past. This discussion should give us a chance not only to consider a woman’s text whose recovery is quite recent, but to think about the challenges involved in archival research.

 

We’ll also have an opportunity to tour Harvard’s extraordinary rare books library, Houghton Library, on Saturday morning. Houghton is home to collections from many women writers, such as Emily Dickinson, Margaret Fuller, Sarah Orne Jewett, Celia Thaxter, Julia Ward Howe, Amy Lowell, among others.  Our host, María Carla Sánchez,, SSAWW advisory board member, former Associate Director for the SSAWW 2012 conference, and, like Dr. Hecimovich, a current Hutchins Center fellow, will be working with librarians at Houghton to put together a selection of materials of particular interest for the group.  (We'll also understand if some participants choose to spend the morning at the Blacks in Boston conference at Boston College; the morning study group event is always optional, since some people use Saturday morning to travel). 

 

 

PRIMARY READING:

 

Hannah Crafts, The Bondwoman's Narrative (we're checking on whether the new edition is available yet, but the full text of the novel is available in the 2002/2003 Warner Books edition) 

 

 

SECONDARY READINGS:

 

Background: story in the New York Times about Dr. Hecimovich's discoveries

 

Introduction to the new edition of The Bondwoman's Narrative (we believe this is now in print, and will ship if you order a new copy of the Warner Books edition, but, since there isn't a new ISBN or other edition indicator, it's hard to be sure.  We will make a copy available in the readings folder ). 

 

Excerpts from Gregg Hecimovich's work-in-progress,  The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of the Bondwoman’s Narrative (this will also be available in the readings folder; because the folder will contain work-in-progress, we've restricted it to those who have RSVP'd for the meeting.  If you're having problems with access, please email Cathy Saunders ).  

 

 

SCHEDULE:

 

Please note changes in schedule below; if you need to contact Cathy or Maria on the day, see phone #s in email sent to participants. 

 

10:00 a.m.: meet at Peets' Coffee, 100 Mount Auburn St.  Anybody who wants to can leave bags, suitcases, etc. in Maria's office c. 10:30-10:45; we'll begin walking over to Houghton c. 10:45. 

 

11:00: meet at Houghton Library, Harvard University, for tour.  

 

c. 1 p.m.: lunch (either at Grafton Street Pub and Grill, 1230 Massachusetts Ave., or we'll buy sandwiches and take them back to the Hutchins, depending on what participants prefer, and how the timing is working out)

 

c. 2 p.m. (possibly a bit later; get in touch if you're joining us at this point): meet at the Hutchins Center for discussion.

 

Maria will organize a group dinner with anyone interested. 

 

 

R.S.V.P.s:

 

Please send RSVPs (by 2/23) or questions to María Sanchez ( mariasanchez@fas.harvard.edu ) or Cathy Saunders (csaunde1@gmu.edu).

 

TRANSPORTATION & LODGING:

 

Short version below; see Maria's much more thorough discussion of transportation, lodging, dining, and entertainment options (mentioned in her comment below) here.

 

Boston is served by a number of airlines at Logan International Airport and by Amtrak at South Station, North Station, and Back Bay.  Each of these transportation hubs is served by a  T (subway) stop, so local transportation from the airport or train station is relatively inexpensive (but you may have to transfer lines, especially if you're coming from the airport).  The Harvard stop is on the leg of the T's red line that terminates at Alewife. 

 

Any travel web site will yield dozens of possible hotels in the Boston area; keep in mind that, as with many major metropolitan areas, the area covered by the search is large, and some of the cheapest possibilities may turn out to be in far-flung suburbs with poor access to public transit.  In addition, parking anywhere near Harvard Square is somewhere between very difficult/expensive and impossible.  Your best bet is probably a hotel near a T stop, either on the Red Line, or in downtown Boston, where switching lines is easy.  One conveniently-located and semi-affordable (by Harvard Square standards) option is the Irving House, a small hotel/large B&B within walking distance of campus. 

 

Here is a good map of the Harvard campus, which allows you to zoom in and out, as well as search: http://map.harvard.edu

 

 

 

 

 

Note: for more information about the Mid-Atlantic American Women Writers Study Group, including a list of past meetings, please see the home page.

Comments (1)

mcsanche@uncg.edu said

at 1:24 pm on Feb 26, 2015

Hi Everyone! I've uploaded a document with more information about hotels in the Harvard Square area, transportation, and opportunities for sight-seeing and fun. It's entitled MA-SSAWW spring meeting info, and should show up among our documents. As for schedule: Let's plan on meeting at Houghton Library, on Harvard's campus and just a few blocks from where we'll have our afternoon discussion, at 10 am. We'll be finished at Houghton by noon, which gives us plenty of time to eat lunch and walk back to the Hutchins Center for our discussion. I will upload a map of Harvard's campus, showing Houghton, shortly. As always, feel free to contact me if you have questions! mariasanchez@fas.harvard.edu ciao, Maria

You don't have permission to comment on this page.