The Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society

Pauline E. Hopkins in Comparative Perspective

The Pauline E. Hopkins Society invites proposals that examine any aspect of Hopkins’ work or life from a comparative perspective for presentation at the 34^rd Annual American Literature Association Convention, to be held in Boston, May 25-28, 2023.  Papers may put Hopkins in dialogue with any of her contemporaries or examine her work in relation to any later writer(s), such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, or Octavia Butler.  We especially welcome submissions examining Hopkins in relation to popular culture (e.g. Wakanda, Lovecraft Country) and speculative fiction. 

Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words, with the subject line, “Hopkins in Comparative Perspective,” to John Barton at bartonjc@umkc.edu by Jan 15, 2023.

For details about the ALA Convention, please consult the following website: https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/general-call-for-papers/

The Pauline E. Hopkins Society invites submissions for its panel, “Hopkins and her Contemporaries: Responses to Racial Violence, Appeals for Racial Justice,” at the 2022 meeting of the American Literature Association. Professor Edlie Wong of the University of Maryland, College Park, will serve as respondent. The full CFP may be found here.

Please join us via Zoom, Monday, June 14, from 2:30-4:00 pm (Eastern time) for our 2021 ALA Panel, “Hopkins and Social Justice.”  The session will be recorded and posted on a new ALA YouTube Channel, thus making our panel available for a considerable time and to a much wider audience than what one would expect at an in-person session.  Our Zoom panel will approximate a live session, with brief introductions from the chair, three 15-minute papers from our presenters, some remarks from our respondent, and a question-and-answer session from audience members in attendance.

We hope you can join us as audience members for this exciting event!  Please feel free to forward this announcement and invite interested friends and colleagues who would like to attend this event.

Below you will find the panel program, followed by the Zoom meeting link and password:

“Pauline Hopkins and Social Justice”

Chair: John Cyril Barton, University of Missouri, Kansas City

1.           “‘After Seeming Death’: Justice and the Making of Equivocal Bodies in Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood,” Hubert Cook, Connecticut College

2.           “‘Caste Prejudice, race pride, boundless wealth, scintillating intellects’:  Pauline Hopkins’s Response to Booker T. Washington in The Colored American and Of One Blood,” Kelsey Flint-Martin, University of South Carolina

3.           “Sappho’s Laughter: Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins’s Satire,” April C. Logan, Salisbury University 

Respondent: John Gruesser, Sr. Research Scholar, Sam Houston State University

Join Zoom Meeting

https://umsystem.zoom.us/j/98061022664?pwd=THg2MVJhc1YrNVNlU3RUWTNxQmkzUT09

Passcode: PEH

The PEHS requests submissions for its upcoming panel, “Hopkins and Her Contemporaries: Responses to Racial Violence, Appeals for Racial Justice.”

Well over a century separates our historical moment from the “lynching era” of Wells, Hopkins, and their contemporaries.  Our two worlds, however, share much in common and are historically linked—not unlike the Southern world of North Carolina in the 1790s and the contemporaneous Northern world of Boston in the 1890s that Hopkins interlinks and about which she powerfully writes in Contending Forces. As the American Literature Association reconvenes in the Boston of our own day, The Pauline E. Hopkins Society invites proposals that examine any aspect of racial violence in the work of Hopkins and her contemporaries—especially Ida Wells—for presentation at the 31st-annual convention in May 2021. Abstracts are due to John Barton at bartonjc@umkc.edu by February 15, 2021. Click here to download the full CFP and proposal requirements.

The Pauline E. Hopkins Society’s president, Dr. Cherene Sherrard-Johnson (University of Wisconsin-Madison), was recently a featured guest on the podcast I Found This Great Book!, which focuses on “sharing mystery, speculative and classic literature by Black authors.”

Sherrard-Johnson discusses “Talma Gordon” and also speaks about the role the PEHS has played in promoting study of Hopkins and her work. 

Enjoy listening to this and other episodes of the podcast, hosted by Curtis Anderson.
Discussing the Writings of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins with Dr. Cherene Sherrard-Johnson

In February 2020, Sam Houston State University hosted a panel on Pauline Hopkins as part of its Diversity Reader series. A full video archive of that panel is available on YouTube.

SHSU Senior Research Scholar John Gruesser moderated the event, with panelists Alisha Knight (Washington College), Jocelyn Moody (University of Texas San Antonio), JoAnn Pavletich (University of Houston Downtown), and Ira Dworkin (Texas A&M University) participating.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the cancellation of the American Literature Association’s 2020 meeting, the Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society will postpone its 2020 panel to the next scheduled ALA conference, planned for Boston in May 2021.

We are pleased to announce that all panelists for “Pauline E. Hopkins and Social Justice” plan to join us at that time.