The “Problematics of Culture and Theory” Seminar, held by the School of English at Aristotle University,
will be hosting an online talk by
Dr. David Roessel, Professor of Greek Language and Literature, School of Arts and Humanities,
Stockton University, U.S.,
on Thursday, March 7th, at 15.00-16.15.
The title of the online talk is:
‘Seldom Many Changes in my Poems’: Revision in the Poems of Langston Hughes
The talk will take place via the Zoom platform. All those interested in attending via zoom, please submit the relevant registration form. The zoom link details for the event will be sent by email on the eve of the talk to all those who have registered for online participation.
The particular event is organized as part of the Stockton U – AUTh Bilateral Agreement and the Erasmus+ Ιnternational Exchange Program.
Problematics Seminar Coordinators:
Dr Ε. Botonaki (botonaki@enl.auth.gr) and Dr S. Emmanouilidou (semma@enl.auth.gr)
EVENT ABSTRACT
In his autobiography, The Big Sea, Hughes claimed that poems came to him in a moment of inspiration, and that he needed to write them down quickly or they could vanish into the air. The record of the publication and reprinting of the poems of Hughes shows that this is not true. In fact, the version of the poem ‘When Susanna Jones Wears Red,’ which Hughes stated that he wrote in high school, was the revised version of the poem that did not appear in print until 1925. This paper will examine the kinds of changes that Hughes made to his poems when they would appear in African American periodicals, white publications, and his mainstream book publisher, Knopf. What can we learn from how Hughes changes his texts? Should an editor always use the last published version of a poem as the authorized version? What happens when an editor simply picks and chooses version based on personal preference? And, of course, why did Hughes present an image of himself as an artist who did not work over his poems with great care, when he clearly did so.
GUEST SPEAKER BIO
David Roessel is the Associate Editor of the Collected Poems of Langston Hughes and the Coeditor of Selected Letters of Langston Hughes. He recently edited Hughes unpublished essay ‘Dialogue on Democracy’ with Megan Coates for The Langston Hughes Review. He is the Peter and Stella Yiannos Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Stockton University.