In California we held two events.

First, we held a public symposium on Ballads on Friday, May 3 at UC Irvine, in which each of us prepared a short text on our takeaways from the December ballad meeting. These short-talks turned into a years’ long engagement which culminated in the publication of a collection of essays in Nineteenth Century Literature edited by Michael Cohen and featuring essays by Meredith McGill, Virginia Jackson, Jason Rudy, Alexandra Socarides, and Carolyn Williams. Vol. 71, No 2, September 2016 as well as to Meredith Martin’s essay “The Ballad Theory of Civilization.”

Cohen, Michael C. “Getting Generic.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 71.2 (2016): 147–155. ncl.ucpress.edu.

Jackson, Virginia. “Specters of the Ballad.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 71.2 (2016): 176–196. ncl.ucpress.edu.

McGill, Meredith L. “What Is a Ballad? Reading for Genre, Format, and Medium.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 71.2 (2016): 156–175. ncl.ucpress.edu.

Rudy, Jason R. “Scottish Sounds in Colonial South Africa.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 71.2 (2016): 197–214. ncl.ucpress.edu.

Socarides, Alexandra. “What Happens When We Don’t Read Ballads Closely Enough.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 71.2 (2016): 215–226. ncl.ucpress.edu.

Williams, Carolyn. “Parodies of the Pre-Raphaelite Ballad Refrain.” NINETEEN CENT LIT 71.2 (2016): 227–255. ncl.ucpress.edu.

On Saturday, we convened at UCLA to discuss two long poems:

Thomas Campbell, Gertrude of Wyoming (1809)

Elizabeth Oakes Smith, The Sinless Child (1843)*

*Note that Smith’s poem was first published in two parts in the Southern Literary Messenger:  8. 1 (Jan 1842), 86-89 and 8.2 (Feb. 1842), 121-125.