LCSNA Fall 2023 Conference

Evolving Carroll: Danger, Drawing, Dancing — and Music!

Our fall conference promises to be highly educational and entertaining, with a diverse array of speakers. Since the Fall 2023 Conference will be held live in-person only, and there will be no livestream, we hope you will attend for the richest conference experience interacting with speakers and with other Carrollians.  Although the sessions will be recorded, those recordings will not be released until much later. 

There is no charge to attend, but please register by getting a ticket below so we can plan for meals.

For planning purposes, please submit a separate registration for each attendee (i.e., please do not combine the names of two or more people on the registration form).

Important note about hotels: we urge you to book your hotel room as soon as possible because some hotels (including some closest to the venue) already have limited availability.

The Program

Friday will feature the Schaefer Memorial Reading, and special Carroll-related exhibits both in the the Kelvin Smith Library’s Special Collections Reading Room and the Cleveland Public Library’s Special Collections.

Saturday.  The program includes the following speakers. Presentation titles and abstracts will be provided as soon as they are available.

• Sean Dietrich, the illustrator of a new edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Daniel Goldmark, Professor and Director of Center for Popular Music Studies Case Western Reserve University, and Jason Hanley, Vice President of Education and Visitor Engagement at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, will explore the history of popular songs inspired by Carroll’s  works, from the earliest days through rock and roll.
• Kenneth Gross, Hilfiker Distinguished Professor in English at the University of Rochester, and author the recent book Dangerous Children, will examine the Alice stories within the context of strange and dangerous children in literature.
• Gladisa Guadalupe, the artistic director of the Cleveland Ballet, will discuss the ballet Alice that the company commissioned and premiered, and will speak about this unconventional circus-themed version.
• Amanda Kennell, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, the University of Notre Dame, will discuss how Japanese image creators who have been working in a variety of media turned to Alice to imagine new ways of living in a digital world and understanding digital technologies.
• James R. Kincaid, Arnold Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern California, and Edward Guiliano, Professor and President Emeritus of New York Institute of Technology, will engage in a dialog on the topic of “Talking About Alices.”
• Laura White, Weaver Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, and the author of The Alice Books and the Contested Ground of the Natural World will explore how ideas about nature changed drastically during the Victorian era, and how Carroll used the charm and wit of Alice to counter Darwinism and then-current theories of evolution. 

Sunday morning we will have the popular Tea Party. 

Download here the extensive 18-page PDF guide, which includes an overview of the three days of the conference, biographies and brief statements about the presentation topics, a list of area hotels, a list of events and attractions in Cleveland that may be of interest to conference goers, restaurant suggestions, and area maps.