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Whitman at 200: Symposium, March 29-30, 2019, Penn Libraries

  • Friday, March 29, 2019 - 4:00pm to 8:00pm
  • Saturday, March 30, 2019 - 9:30am to 6:00pm

Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, 6th floor, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, 3420 Walnut Street


The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, announces a symposium exploring Walt Whitman, his work and his life, to be held on Friday, March 29, & Saturday, March 30, 2019. 

The keynote, "Whitman Getting Old," will be given by Ed Folsom (Iowa), co-director of the Whitman Archive and editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review and the Whitman Series for the University of Iowa Press. 

Participants include Nancy Bentley (UPenn), Max Cavitch (UPenn), Matt Cohen (UNebraska, Lincoln), Jay Grossman (Northwestern), Tyler Hoffman (Rutgers), Virginia Jackson (UCalifornia, Irvine), Heather Love (UPenn), Meredith McGill (Rutgers), Don James McLaughlin (UTulsa), Peter Stallybrass (UPenn), Michael Warner (Yale), Edward Whitley (Lehigh), and Michael Winship (UTexas, Austin). 

The symposium will begin on Friday, March 29, at 4 pm, with "Printing Whitman at the Common Press, Penn's Letterpress Studio," followed by the welcome and keynote at 5:30 pm, and a reception and pop-up exhibition from Penn's Whitman Collection at 6:30 pm. 

Saturday's symposium will run from 9:30 am (coffee and light breakfast) to 6 pm, with four speaker sessions, a viewing of the pop-up exhibition, a student panel, and final reflections on "Late Whitman and Early Afterlife: The Good Gray Poet," moderated by Peter Stallybrass.

For more information and to register, http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/whit_symp.html

This symposium is part of Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy a region-wide initiative to explore the impact and importance of Walt Whitman in 2019, his bicentennial year. Institution and organizations in Philadelphia and Camden are partnering to present a diverse variety of exhibitions and events on poetry and music, plastic arts, the environment, printing and publishing, and contemporary social, political, and cultural issues. To learn more about Whitman at 200 and to view the calendar of events, go to:  whitmanat200.org 

Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy has received major funding from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. 

free and open to the public (please show photo ID at entrance)