A three-week seminar for college and university
faculty to study the work and archive of the American poet Elizabeth Bishop.
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) has emerged as one of the most studied and discussed American poets of the 20th century. The three-week NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Professors that Westminster College is proposing, Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive, draws on the extensive Bishop archive at Vassar College (120 boxes, 3500 pages of drafts of poems and prose, hundreds of letters to many of the major poets and writers of the twentieth century, notebooks, memorabilia and artwork) in order to approach broader questions on teaching, research, and writing in the humanities. The goals of this seminar are to extend and deepen our knowledge and understanding about Bishop, her circle, and literary history; introduce and develop new methods of interdisciplinary teaching and research in the humanities; strengthen the academic discourse surrounding the ethics of archival research; and develop a deeper understanding of how social issues affect artistic expression.