2018 PAMLA Conference Luncheons and Addresses

Please join us for one or both of our PAMLA Luncheons. They do cost a bit extra, but are some of the most memorable and useful events at the conference. You can join us for a lovely luncheon and the Friday Presidential Address and/or Saturday Plenary Address by making your reservation here: https://www.pamla.org/2018/registration-info

We invite you to join us for the 2018 PAMLA Presidential Address and Luncheon on Friday, November 9, beginning at 11:30 am. Our PAMLA President, Katherine Kinney, will be delivering an address titled “I learned it at the movies.” The Presidential Luncheon, which does involve an additional expense, is a definite highlight of the conference.

The critic Frank Kermode begins his great work, The Sense of an Ending, by observing: “It is not expected of critics as it is of poets that they should help us to make sense of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives.” Writing in 1965, Kermode continues, “I take comfort from the conviction that the topic is infallibly interesting, and especially at a moment in history when it may be harder than ever to accepts the precedents of sense making” (3). Inspired by Kermode’s example, Professor Kinney considers the importance of the secondariness of the critic’s work by considering the art of acting in the movies. Like criticism, movie acting has long been seen as a “lesser feat,” lacking the authenticating integrity of the bodily presence of actor and audience offered by the stage. Yet, movies continue to offer powerful forms of sense making, acting prominent among them. The old distrust of actors, the ever expanding cult of celebrity, the power of representation, the affective pull of empathy and repulsion all offer keys to understanding the media culture of mistrust that surrounds us.

Katherine Kinney is Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities and Associate Professor of English at the University of California Riverside, where she teaches courses in 20^th century American literature and film. She received her B.A. in English and History from the University of Washington and her PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania. The author of Friendly Fire: American Images of the Vietnam War (Oxford 2000), she is currently writing a book entitled The Shock of Freedom: Acting, the Movies and the 1960s. Her most recent publication, “The Resonance of Brando’s Voice,” appears in Postmodern Culture (2014). She was Associate Editor of American Quarterly from 2003 to 2007 and on the editorial board of American Literature from 2002-2005.

Katherine Kinney has been an active participant of PAMLA for many years. She has organized and moderated panels and presented a number of papers at PAMLA conferences. In 2013, Katherine Kinney was selected as one of the speakers for the Special Forum: “Stages of Life: Age, Identity, and Culture” at the 111^th Annual PAMLA Conference in San Diego, California.

Please also join us for the 2018 PAMLA Plenary Address and Luncheon on Saturday, November 10, beginning at 11:30 am. Our Plenary Speaker, Professor Bella Martin, will be delivering an address titled “The Creation of the Living Word – Shakespeare, Stanislavsky, and the Words of Wise Women.” The Plenary Address Luncheon, which does involve an additional expense, is sure to be a highlight of the conference.

In actor training and performance, our words have the power to create deep affects if we truly let them play on our own imaginations and we use our voice with vibration and resonance. Bella Merlin, professional actress and Stanislavsky scholar, addresses timely questions about truth and authenticity. Drawing from two revolutionary approaches to acting – Stanislavsky’s system and the innovatory approach of Kristin Linklater and Tina Packer at Shakespeare & Company – Professor Merlin considers the relation of word, voice, and body in theory and practice.

Bella Merlin, PhD, is an actor, writer and professor of acting and directing at the University of California, Riverside. As a practice-based researcher, she combines professional acting with scholarly writing. Acting includes: Cymbeline, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice and The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Shakespeare & Company, MA); Richard III (Colorado Shakespeare Festival); Nights and Dreams: Schubert and Beckett (LA Phil/Disney Hall; She Stoops To Conquer; A Laughing Matter and The Permanent Way (Royal National Theatre/Out of Joint Theatre Company); numerous performances in theatre, TV, and BBC Radio in the UK. Books include Konstantin Stanislavsky (Revised edition 2018); Acting: The Basics (Revised edition 2017); Facing the Fear: An Actor’s Guide to Overcoming Stage Fright (2016) and The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit (2014). Her most recent acting includes her leading role in Mexican writer/director Alejandro Ramirez’s Mente Revolver (2018) (winner of the Alhambra Gold at the Granada International Film Festival; official selection at the Guadalajara International Film Festival). Her commitment to acting as a means of sharpening human communication and enabling actor-audience empathy through language and imagination has led to her co-writing of Shakespeare & Company: Training, Education, Performance with Tina Packer, founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company with voice guru Kristin Linklater (forthcoming, Routledge 2019). www.bellamerlin.com

Please do make a reservation to join us for a lovely luncheon and the Friday Presidential Address and/or Saturday Plenary Address by making your reservation here: https://www.pamla.org/2018/registration-info