Minutes, Dreiser Society Business Meeting

1. Announcements.

• Jim West has received Penn State’s Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts and Humanities.
• Indiana State University has renamed its Research Award, given annually at commencement, as the Theodore Dreiser Research and Creativity Award.
• The general topic for the 1999 ALA Dreiser panels will be "Dreiser and Other Writers," with the actual title(s) determined later. Jim West was appointed (in absentia) as coordinator of the sessions.

2. Secretary/Treasurer’s Report.

The society treasury is in good shape, with some $2200 in its account. There was some concern expressed for tardy renewals of membership from long-standing Dreiserians. There are at present about 60 active members, which is a slight increase over last year. There followed some discussion of ways to attract new members, with a $10 student rate approved via email vote.

3. Dreiser Studies and Dreiser Newsletter.

Since Editor Clare Eby was not able to attend, Managing Editor Keith Newlin reported on the current status of the journal. We sent out a mailing to 300 PhD-granting English departments to solicit contributions, Society membership, and library subscriptions. The mailing has had some effect: submissions have increased of late, and we expect to have the journal current by Fall (we are two issues behind). There are about 200 subscribers, but approximately 20 of these are universities—such as New York Public Library, Harvard, and the Newberry libraries—who are in arrears, some for several years. We decided that Keith would circulate a list to the editorial board and Society officers to determine whether the Society wanted to grant gift subscriptions to any of these institutions. Finally, two photos of Dreiser were approved to be used on the Spring and Fall covers.

The Newsletter has been inactive, and Society officers will check to see if the current editor wants to continue; if not, the Society will appoint a new editor to coordinate Dreiser news, which will be published on the web rather than in paper form.

4. Sister Carrie Centennial

There was some discussion of the Sister Carrie centennial plans. Unfortunately, neither Jim West nor Jim Hutchisson (who were delegated at last year’s meeting to coordinate the event) were present. We decided that if plans to meet in Chicago have stalled, we would explore the possibility of holding the year 2000 meeting in Germany. John Clendenning, who is also a member of the Crane Society, noted that the Crane Society was planning to hold its year 2000 meeting in England, and there was some discussion of coordinating a Dreiser meeting in Germany to follow shortly after the Crane meeting—with the idea being that scholars might be able to wrangle funding for a series of European conferences. We decided to discover what progress had been made with the Chicago conference plans and to keep apprised of the Crane Society plans.

• Clare Eby has announced that she will step down as Editor of Dreiser Studies effective May 1999. Keith Newlin and Steve Brennan were appointed Co-Editors.
• Steve was also appointed Dreiser Studies Bibliographer and a Society Director-at-Large.
• The two Directors-at-Large will henceforth coordinate the ALA business meetings, determine and publish the agenda, and notify members in a timely fashion.

—Minutes by Keith Newlin