2003 CONFERENCE INFORMATION

The 9th Annual Robinson Jeffers Association Conference
April 25 - 27, 2003, Radisson Woodlands, Flagstaff, AZ
Theme: Directions in Environmentalism: Jeffers and Others

Friday, April 25

3:30 - 4:30 RJA Executive & Jeffers Studies Editorial Boards Meeting 

4:30 - 5:30 General Business Meeting

6:00 - 8:00 Reception hosted by Max Oelschlaeger and the Center for Culture and Environment, featuring poetry readings by Lili Bita, Catherine Owen, and Diane Thiel

Saturday, April 26

8:30 Coffee & President's Welcome

James Baird, University of North Texas 

8:30 Plenary Address

Max Oelschlaeger, Northern Arizona University, "Jeffers's Theophanic Spiral: A Strong Poet's
     Love of God"

9:30 Panel: Who Speaks (for) the Environment? 

Jeff Fouquet, University of Kansas: "Writing to Victory: Jeffers, Freirie, and Mustering Soldiers for
     the Ongoing Struggle for Environmental Awareness"
Catherine Owen, Independent Scholar: “Roots of Language: Robinson Jeffers’s Ecological
     Meta-Poesis”
Terry Beers, Santa Clara University: “Robinson Jeffers and Sally Carrighar: Exploring the Inner Life
     of Animals”
Chair: Alex Vardamis, University of Vermont, Emeritus

11:00 Panel: Responses to Time and Place 

Robert Brophy, California State University, Long Beach: “Environment Inducing Madness: Big Sur
     and Jeffers’s ‘insanities of desire’”
Patrick Dooley, St. Bonaventure University: “The Inhuman Philosophies of Robinson Jeffers and
     Edward Abbey: ‘to travel down the strange falling scale’”
George Hart, California State University, Long Beach: “From the Two to the One: Jeffers and
     Rexroth, Sacramental Wholeness, and the Age of Ecology”
Chair: ShaunAnne Tangney, Minot State Uni-versity; Executive Director, RJA

12:30-2:00 Lunch (on your own)

2:00-3:30 Panel: Rock the House: What’s Geology Got To Do With It? 

ShaunAnne Tangney, Minot State University: “Writing the Rock: Robinson Jeffers and Apocalyptic
     Geology”
Aaron Yoshinobu, Texas Tech University: “The Geologic Consciousness of Robinson Jeffers:
     Mapping the Influence of Geology at Tor House and in Verse”
Peter Quigley, Minnesota State Univ., Moorhead: “The Role of Houses in the Life and Writing of
     Environmental Writers” 
Chair: Terry Beers, Santa Clara University

3:30-5:00 Special Presentation on Falconry 

Alan Malnar, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University: “Hawks of Jeffers Country: A Biological,
     Ethological, and Morphological Presentation”
Chair: Peter Quigley

6:00-9:00 Banquet: An Arabian Nights Buffet

Sunday, April 26

8:00 Coffee

8:30 Keynote Address: 

Gary Nabhan, Northern Arizona University: “The Whole Human Race Spends Too Much Emotion
     On Itself”

9:30-11:00 Panel: Intersections of Art and Environment

David J. Rothman, Crested Butte Academy: “Ecotopia and Art in the Twentieth Century”
Deborah Fleming, Ashland University: “Winged Rock and the Environmental Consciousness of
     Robinson Jeffers”
Rebecca Raglon, University of British Columbia: “Robinson Jeffers and the Implications of an
     Environmental Aesthetic” 
Chair: James Baird, University of North Texas, RJA President

11:00-12:30 Panel: Presentation on the Importance of the Arts in the Study of the Environment

Constantine Hadjilambrinos, Florida International University
Diane Thiel, University of New Mexico
Chair: ShaunAnne Tangney, Minot State University, RJA Executive Director

12:30-2:00 Lunch (on your own)

2:00-3:30 Panel

Jim Baird, University of North Texas: “Jeffers and Hardy: Closet Ecologists”
Robert Zaller, Drexel University: “Landscape as Divination: Reading ‘Apology For Bad Dreams’”
Alex Vardamis, President, Tor House Foundation, Professor Emeritus, University of Vermont:
     “Medea and the Imagery of War” 
Chair: George Hart, California State University, Long Beach

3:30 Adjourn