March 2026 Symposium: An Un-Conference
The International T. S. Eliot Society is hosting a two-day, virtual symposium open to all members free of charge (registration is required, please use "Register" button to the left). Rather than a traditional conference featuring several panels of 20-minute scholarly presentations, this symposium will consist of two ninety-minute sessions (one each day) that will emphasize discovery and conversation while promoting work in progress and community. The first session, on Thursday, March 5 (at 10 a.m. EST), will feature 5-minute presentations and discussion about newly published primary materials; the second session, on Friday, March 6 (at 10 a.m. EST), will provide an opportunity for participants to get feedback on works in progress. Both sessions will identify and explore new directions in Eliot Studies.
Show-and-Tell Sandbox
A wealth of previously unpublished or uncollected primary materials has enriched Eliot Studies in recent years: 11 volumes of letters and 8 volumes of prose totaling more than 17,000 pages have been published since 2009. It is an enormous undertaking for scholars to sift through these materials to identify new lines of inquiry or to revise longstanding accounts about the poet’s life and work. This session crowd-sources some of this work: presenters will discuss a single letter or prose piece that invites new perspective on Eliot, offers a previously unrecognized context for his work, or appears to contradict a familiar scholarly narrative. Rather than elaborating a formal argument, presenters are encouraged to raise questions and suggest more speculative connections in the service of identifying some potential new directions for Eliot Studies. Each speaker will have no more than 5 minutes to introduce and contextualize the primary document of their choice, followed by open discussion among all participants.
When: Thursday, March 5 (at 10 a.m. EST)
Panel length: 1.5 hours featuring 4–5 speakers, each with 5-minute mini-presentations, followed by general discussion
Interested in presenting? By January 15, 2026, please send a proposal of no more than 200 words to both Ria Banerjee (Ria.Banerjee@guttman.cuny.edu) and John Morgenstern (jdmorge@emory.edu) identifying the work you would like to discuss, a concise explanation of how it opens new lines of inquiry for Eliot studies, and a brief bio.
Works-in-Progress Workshop
In this session, we invite participants working on any topic related to Eliot Studies to workshop in-progress essays. There are two ways to participate: send us your essay-in-progress to be pre-circulated in advance or take part in a breakout session as a respondent. Writers are asked to keep submissions to a maximum of 15 pages, and respondents should prepare comments to be shared in an hour-long session. Work at various stages of completion is welcome, from rough drafts of book chapters to articles in the final stages of preparation for publication.
When: Friday, March 6 (at 10 a.m. EST)
Panel length: 1.5 hours, 15 minutes of introductory comments, 1 hour of breakout review sessions, and 15 minutes of full-group wrap-up.
Interested in sharing your work in progress? By January 15, 2026, please send an abstract of no more than 200 words for the piece you propose to workshop as well as a brief bio to both Ria Banerjee (Ria.Banerjee@guttman.cuny.edu) and John Morgenstern (jdmorge@emory.edu).