DHLSNA

History of the DHLSNA

Society Origins:  The D. H. Lawrence Society was officially inaugurated in December of 1975 at the Modern Language Association (MLA) in San Francisco.  (The MLA is the premier organization of literature teachers of America.)  At that meeting, James Cowan was elected the first president and George Zytaruk the vice president or president-elect. The Society grew out of a series of MLA seminars Cowan convened, and Zytaruk wrote and presented the initial charter for The D.H. Lawrence Society (See DHLR, Spring vol. 9.1 of 1976, 167-68).  The first annual meeting occurred in December of the following year at the MLA in New York.  To avoid confusion with other Lawrence societies around the world, the name quickly changed to D.H. Lawrence Society of America; and then, at the December 1980 MLA in Houston, the name officially became the D.H. Lawrence Society of North America (DHLSNA), although current society members live and work all over the world.  The DHLSNA officially became a non-profit organization in May of 2011 and so enjoys tax exempt status.  Lawrence sessions at the annual MLA Convention from 1980 on (listed below) have been organized by DHLSNA and recorded in issues of its Newsletter.

Conferences:  Besides holding the annual MLA sessions, the Society has actively participated in all of the thirteen International D.H. Lawrence Conferences to date (as well as taken the lead in organizing several).  Lawrence societies around the world have collaborated to hold conferences in the following locations: Tufts, Boston (1985); Shanghai, China (1988); Montpellier, France (1990); Paris, France (1992); Ottawa, Canada (1993); Nottingham, England (1996); Taos, NM (1998); Naples, Italy (2001); Kyoto, Japan 2003; Santa Fe, New Mexico (2005); Eastwood, England (2007); Sydney, Australia (2011); and Gargnano, Italy (2014); London, England (2017), and Taos, NM (2022).  These International Conferences are authorized by the Co-ordinating Committee for International D.H. Lawrence Conferences (CCILC).  The Society also periodically sponsors awards.

Newsletter:  The Society's Newsletter was first published as a biannual supplement to the D.H. Lawrence Review (Spring vol. 10.1 and Fall vol. 10.3 of 1977 and Summer vol. 11.2 of 1978) until it became a self-sustaining separate publication in Fleda Brown Jackson's term as editor--and continued so under the editorship of Eleanor Green, Nancy Paxton, Julianne Newmark, and now Pamela Wright.  The Newsletter went electronic in 2011 and an online archive of back-issues became available in 2012.

Sister Societies:  D. H. Lawrence Societies also exist in England, Japan, Korea, Australia, and Italy; and significant Lawrence scholarship comes from more than a dozen other countries, as well.  The Reception of D. H. Lawrence Around the World, ed. Takeo Iida (Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press, 1999), surveys such scholarship in Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, Korea, China, and India (see review).  The Reception of D. H. Lawrence in Europe, ed. Christa Jansohn and Dieter Mehl (London: Continuum, 2007), furthers the comprehensive look at the reception in Europe.  A rich tradition of Lawrence scholarship in Africa is also traced in D. H. Lawrence Around the World:  South African Perspectives, ed. Jim Phelps and Nigel Bell (Empangeni: Echoing Green, 2007).  Another book of general interest is one published by the MLA: Approaches to Teaching the Works of D. H. Lawrence, ed. Elizabeth Sargent and Garry Watson (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2001), with essays and teaching approaches by more than 30 scholars/teachers.

C.U.P.:  A number of our members have worked on the massive Cambridge Edition of the Works of D.H. Lawrence published by the Cambridge University Press.  Its 45-plus volumes is completing the scholarly publication of Lawrence's works in 2013 and is considered the definitive texts for reference.  According to the DHLR, Pollnitz is working on a third volume of The Poems to include uncollected and unpublished poems and other notes.  (Now completed!)

Please feel free to visit our Memorial page, set up to honor deceased DHLSNA members and other noteworthy Lawrentians.  Past MLA Lawrence Session topics/papers are listed below. 

 

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Past Presidents of the DHLSNA