Conference Schedule

Click here for a printer-friendly tentative schedule of conference events.

Registration required for all events not marked "Open to the Public".

TCNJ students, faculty, staff, and administration may attend any event except Teaching Wilder Seminars and Cash bar/Banquet.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
8:30-9:00 A.M.	Registration Library Auditorium Lobby
9:00-10:30 A.M.	Panel 1 Biographical Approaches Library Auditorium Moderator: Michele Tarter, The College of New Jersey • Dennis Loyd, Lipscomb University, "Thornton Wilder and His Remarkable Family" • Edward Journey, Alabama A&M, "The Naked Stage: Gertrude Stein, Thornton Wilder, and the Modernist Impulse" • Arvid Sponberg, Valparaiso University, "Vis-Comica on the Lake: The Chicago Roots of Wilder's Scheme to Reform American Comedy"
10:45-10:50 A.M.	Welcome from the College of New Jersey Library Auditorium Dr. Carol Bresnahan, Provost and Executive Vice President, The College of New Jersey
10:50-12:30 P.M.	Plenary Session I (Open to the Public) Library Auditorium Moderator: Jackson R. Bryer, University of Maryland • Christopher Bigsby, University of East Anglia, "On Trying to Like Our Town" • Scott Donaldson, College of William & Mary, "The Wide World of Wilder's Fiction" • Tappan Wilder, Chevy Chase, MD, "From the Podium: Thornton Wilder as Teacher, Lecturer, and Spokesman"
12:35-1:25 P.M.	Lunch Teaching Wilder Seminar I Leaders: TBA Location: Eickhoff 158 (Free to New Jersey teachers but advance registration required)
1:30-3:00 P.M.	Panel 2 Thornton Wilder's Influence on Arthur Miller Library Auditorium Moderator: Jan Balakian, Kean University • Stephen Marino, St. Francis College, "'Cut Out the Town and You Will Cut Out the Poetry': Thornton Wilder and Arthur Miller" • Lew Livesay, Saint Peter's College, "Historicizing the Great Depression with Histrionics from Redemptive Vaudeville: Wilder's Heaven's My Destination and Miller's The American Clock" • Susan C. W. Abbotson, Rhode Island College, "Miller's Debt to Thornton Wilder: To The American Clock by The Skin of Our Teeth - Concocting the Right Recipe for Survival" • Jane Dominik, San Joaquin Delta College, "Bending Time and Place: Structure in Wilder's and Miller's Drama"
3:15-4:45 P.M.	Panel 3A The View from Abroad I Library Auditorium Moderator: Ashley Gallagher, The College of New Jersey • Julie Vatain, Sorbonne University, "'It's been a dream of my life to see Paris': Pleasures and Challenges of Translating Our Town into French" • Dianna Pickens, University of Naples, Federico II and Suor Orsola Benincasa, "Early Critical Reception of Thornton Wilder in Italy" • Hachiya Mizutani, Waseda University, "The Reception of Thornton Wilder in Japan" Panel 3B The View from Abroad II Eickhoff 158 Moderator: Diane Steinberg, The College of New Jersey • Dan Hansong, Nanjing University, "A Wilderian Nirvana of Western Allegorical Mode: Theophilus North and the Traditions of Ancient Chinese Allegory" • Sanja Nikcevic, The Academy of Arts and University of Osijek, Croatia, "Wilder's Influence on American Drama"
5:00-7:30 P.M.	Dinner 1855 Room
8:00-11:00 P.M.	Performance Kendall Auditorium The Skin of Our Teeth Followed by Talkback with Director and Cast

Friday, October 3, 2008
8:30-9:00 A.M.	Registration Library Auditorium Lobby
9:00-10:30 A.M.	Panel 4 Wilder as Fiction Writer Library Auditorium Moderator: Mary Biggs, The College of New Jersey • Christopher J. Wheatley, Catholic University, "Religion and Historical Crisis" • Nancy Bunge, Michigan State University, "Wilder's Midwest: Heaven's My Destination and The Eighth Day" • Bill Waters, The College of New Jersey, "Thornton Wilder's 'The Warship': A Warning Against Unilateral Disengagement and Sociopolitical Entropy"
10:45-12:15 P.M.	Panel 5A Lesser-known Works Library Auditorium Moderator: David Blake, The College of New Jersey • Mary C. English, Montclair State University, "The Alcestiad, or A life in the Sun: Thornton Wilder's 'Unsung' Treasure" • David Garrett Izzo, American Public University, "Wilder's Cosmology According to The Angel That Troubled the Waters" • Edyta K. Oczkowicz, Salem College, "'Carving Some Cherry Stones': The Role of Disparities in Thornton Wilder's The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays"
10:45-12:15 P.M.	Panel 5B Wilder as Librettist and Screenwriter Eickhoff 158 Moderator: Anthony Giffone, SUNY Farmingdale • Janie Caves McCauley, Bob Jones University, "Wilder's The Long Christmas Dinner as Hindemith Opera" • Kendra Preston Leonard, Drexel Hill, PA, "The Origins of The Alcestiad: from Voi che sapete to Apollo's Tone Row" • Donna Green, The College of New Jersey, "Without a Doubt: Looking at Shadow of a Doubt as a Work of Thornton Wilder"
12:15-1:30 P.M.	Lunch Teaching Wilder Seminar II Leaders: TBA Location: Eickhoff 158 (Free to New Jersey teachers but advance registration required)
1:30-3:00 P.M.	Playwrights on Wilder (Open to the Public) Music Building Concert Hall Introduction: Deborah Compte, Interim Dean, School Of Culture and Society, TCNJ Moderator: Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, New York University • Edward Albee • Lee Blessing • Tina Howe • Donald Margulies
3:15-4:45 P.M.	A Reading by Marian Seldes and Edward Albee (Open to the Public) Music Building Concert Hall Introduction: Dr. Elizabeth Paul, Vice Provost, The College of New Jersey Moderator: Tappan Wilder
4:45-5:30 P.M.	Reception (Open to the Public) Concert Hall Lobby
5:30-7:30 P.M.	Dinner & Wilder Society Membership Meeting 1855 Room
8:30-9:30 P.M.	Directing Wilder (Open to the Public) Library Auditorium Introduction: Taras Pavlovsky, Interim Dean, School of Arts and Communication Moderator: Terryl Hallquist, Vanderbilt University • Carl Forsman, Keen Company, New York City • Irene Lewis, CENTERSTAGE, Baltimore • Emily Mann, McCarter Theatre, Princeton
8:00-11:00 P.M.	Performance Kendall Auditorium The Skin of Our Teeth

Saturday, October 4, 2008
8:30-9:00 A.M.	Registration Library Auditorium Lobby
9:00-10:30 A.M.	Panel 6 Wilder's One-act Plays Library Auditorium Moderator: Susan Thomas, Bard College • Henry Wishcamper, Katharsis Theater Company, "Directing Pullman Car Hiawatha" • Terryl Hallquist, Vanderbilt University, "'A Discreet [Replete] Ballet': A Production Approach to Wilder's One-Acts" • Anne Fletcher, Southern Illinois University, "In the Moment with Thornton Wilder: Contemplating Some of the Short Plays" • Yvonne Shafer, St. John's University, "The Dark Vision of Thornton Wilder"
10:45-12:15 P.M.	Plenary Session II Library Auditorium Moderator: Michael P. Parker, United States Naval Academy • Christopher Benfey, Mount Holyoke College, "Wilder and Proust Revisited" • J. D. McClatchy, Yale University, "Thornton Wilder: Becoming a Novelist" • Joseph Roach, Yale University, "The Wilder West: A Cultural Geography of Our Town"
12:15-1:30 P.M.	Wilder Exhibit and Luncheon Social Science Building Atrium Sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, and Alpha Psi Omega, the Theatre Honor Society
1:30-3:00 P.M.	Plenary Session III Library Auditorium Moderator: George Monteiro, Brown University • Brenda Murphy, University of Connecticut, "Wilder, Kazan, and Hurricane Tallulah: The Original Production of The Skin of OUr Teeth" • Penelope Niven, Salem College, "'Biographizing': Thornton Wilder on How to Write Biography" • William W. Demastes, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, "Spalding Gray's Stage Manager: New England 'Metaphysics' in Our Town"
3:15-4:45 P.M.	Panel 9A Our Town Library Auditorium Moderator: Michael Robertson, The College of New Jersey • Attilio Favorini, University of Pittsburgh, "Remembering and Forgetting on 'The Other Side': William James, Peter Ibbetson, and the Stage Manager" • Kenneth Elliott, Rutgers University-Camden, "The Outsider: Contextualizing Simon Stimson in Our Town" • Richard A. Davison, University of Delaware, "Through the Years with Our Town" • Dorothy Leifheit, Marietta College, "Possibilities: The Intersection of Process Thought and Thornton Wilder's Our Town" Panel 9B Wilder and Production Eickhoff 158 Moderator: David Radavich, Eastern Illinois University • Michael Vanden Heuvel, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Postmodern avante la lettre: Wilder's Anticipations of the Wooster Group" • Peter Lobdell, Amherst College, "Our Town as 'Poor Theater' or How Thornton Wilder Predicted Jerzy Grotowski" • Ronald J. Zank, University of Missouri-Columbia, "'Always Beginning again': Sabina as Actress, Lilith as American in The Skin of Our Teeth"
5:00-6:30 P.M.	Panel 10 Wilder's Varying Texts Library Auditorium Moderator: Jo Carney, The College of New Jersey • Park Bucker, University of South Carolina Sumter, "'All the Little Things' in Our Town: Thornton Wilder's Evolving Values and Stagecraft as Revealed by a Collation and Concordance of the Play's Three Published Versions" • Max Alvarez, New York City, "Wilder and Hitchcock: Writing and Re-Writing Shadow of a Doubt" • David Hammond, Guilford College, "Wilder and Ibsen: The Three Texts of A Doll's House"
6:30-7:30 P.M.	Cash Bar Brower Student Center, 202E (Registration Required)
7:30-9:30 P.M.	Banquet/Presentation of Thornton Wilder Prize to Russell Banks Brower Student Center, 202E Introduction: R. Barbara Gitenstein, President, The College of New Jersey Presentation of the Wilder Prize: J. D. McClatchy (Registration Required)
8:00-11:00 P.M.	Performance Kendall Auditorium The Skin of Our Teeth

Click here for information about tickets for the campus production of Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth by local repertory company Shakespeare '70.


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