The Fitzgerald Society hosted twice-weekly online webinars from June 13 to July 14, 2021, in lieu of our usual biennial conference. We’re keeping them available to educators and fans who can still graduate Summa Cum Scott and Zelda post-Covid!

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1. Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 4 pm EST (1 pm PST, 9 pm UK):

Fitzgerald Summer School Orientation/30th Anniversary Society Celebration

Join the F Scott Fitzgerald Society for a quick overview of the exciting programming to come over the next month. We’ll also be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Fitzgerald Society, updating you on Fitzgerald news, and even Zooming in a few special guests.

Sorry, we didn’t tape this one!

2. Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UK):

“This is a Magazine”: F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Periodical World

This session of Fitzgerald Summer School will explore the periodicals in America in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s era; examine periodical studies as a field; look at the role of periodicals in FSF’s career; and showcase materials from the Bruccoli collection at the University of South Carolina and other digital archives.

Panelists will include
1. Jennifer Nolan, Associate Professor of English, North Carolina State University
2. Bryant Mangum, Professor of English, Virginia Commonwealth University
3. Barbara Green, Professor of English and Gender Studies, University of Notre Dame, Editor, Journal of Modern Periodical Studies
4. Michael Weisenburg, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina

If you’re at all interested in what the periodical culture of the early 20th century was like, this session is a must attend! Check out our YouTube channel to watch if you missed us live!

3. Sunday, June 20, 2021 at 4 pm EST ( 1 pm PST, 9 pm UK)

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Race, Part I: Postwar New York and the “Rising Tide of Color”

Join eminent biographer Arnold Rampersad (The Life of Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison: A Biography, and many others) in a conversation with Michael Nowlin (F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Racial Angles and the Business of Literary Greatnesss), moderated by Anne Margaret Daniel (editor, I’d Die for You and Other Lost Stories), about the multiethnic intersections and the roadblocks to racial understanding in 1920s’ New York, including in The Great Gatsby.

Available HERE on YouTube!

4. Thursday, June 24, 2021, at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UK)

Fitzgerald and Race II: Artificial Colors and Racial Fictions in The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and Other (mostly) non-Gatsby Works

Our second Fitzgerald Summer School webinar on Fitzgerald and race explores images of skin color, masking and passing, assimilation, immigration, and xenophobia in a variety of ethnicities and religions in The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and other select works.

Panelists include:
1. Meredith Goldsmith, Professor of English and Associate Dean, Ursinus College
2. Catherine Keyser, Professor and McCausland Fellow, University of South Carolina
3. Deborah Davis Schlacks, Professor of English Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Superior
4. David W. Ullrich, Professor of English, Birmingham-Southern College
Moderating the discussion will be William Blazek, Associate Professor, Liverpool Hope and Fitzgerald Society Vice-president

Attendees will also enjoy a special preview of a forthcoming essay collection celebrating next year’s centennial of The Beautiful and Damned. Special thanks to Prof. Keyser for letting us borrow the title of her book Artificial Color: Modern Food and Racial Fictions (2019)

Click HERE to watch on YouTube!

5. Sunday, June 27, 2021, at 4 p.m. EST (1 p.m. PST, 9 p.m. UK)

Teaching The Great Gatsby in North American Secondary Schools

Why do we continue to teach The Great Gatsby in high schools? How do we teach it? What types of activities best foster an understanding of its cultural value? And how do we leverage that value to encourage young readers to ply its themes to their own developing self-understanding? Additionally, how do current events, especially those concerning the cultural diversity that student populations today reflect, influence our teaching? Join us as we address these and other challenges to inspiring high schoolers to appreciate this literary landmark as it approaches its 100th birthday. Roundtable participants include:
1. Dr. Julie Kenyon, Fitzgerald scholar, Blind Brook High School, Rye Brook, New York
2. Ms. Caroline Baldwin, Reynolds High School, Victoria, British Columbia
3. Dr. Michael Bieze, Chairman, Fine Arts Department, Marist School, Atlanta, GA.
4. Ms. Alysha Butler, District of Columbia Public Schools, Washington DC
5. Ms. Alexandra Howes, Twin Cities Academy, Saint Paul, Minnesota
6. Ruth-Terry Walden, Esq., AntiRacist Teaching and Learning Collective and literature teacher at Westhill High School, Stamford, Connecticut

Click HERE to watch on YouTube!

6. Wednesday, June 30, 2021 at 1 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. UK

The Global Gatsby: Teaching F. Scott Fitzgerald Around the World

How do classrooms beyond North America teach F. Scott Fitzgerald and his various works? This webinar will spotlight international members of the Fitzgerald Society, along with some special guests, to explore how he “translates” (both literally and figuratively) across oceans and continents. Is he considered exclusively “American,” or are his themes able to connect on a local level, so he is seen universally? Join us to help ensure that Fitzgerald reaches across all latitudes and longitudes!

Participants include:
1. Dr Helen Turner, Linnaeus University, Sweden, moderator
2. Mr Jonathan Beaumont, Kearsney College, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
3. Dr Elisabeth Bouzonviller, Université Jean Monnet, Lyon France
4. Dr Natsuo Chiyoda, Kagoshima University, Japan.
5. Mr Dan Jenkins, St Thomas More High School, London
6. Dr Niklas Salmose, Linnaeus University, Sweden

Click HERE to watch on YouTube!

1. Friday, July 2, 2021, at 9 a.m.  EST, 2 p.m. UK (so we don’t intrude upon the holiday)

Kuehl Fellowship Graduate Student Spotlight

Join us to celebrate the work in progress of nine of our emerging scholars from around the world! Among our nine presenters (three with a group project) will be folks beaming in from Sweden, the Netherlands, Florida, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio. The Kuehl Fellowships began in 2000 to honor the Fitzgerald scholar John Kuehl, who passed away in 1998. We are deeply thankful to his wife, Linda Kuehl, for funding the award. Our host for the session is Dr. Ross Tangedal.

Watch HERE on YouTube!

7. Wednesday, July 7, 2021, at 1 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. UK

F. Scott Fitzgerald in His Own Time

If you’re a Fitzgerald reader, you can probably reel off his main influences: Compton Mackenzie, H. L. Menken, Keats and Shelley, Edmund Wilson, Henry Adams, Oswald Spengler, maybe even Ernest Hemingway. This session will feature three Fitzgerald rock stars—Sarah Churchwell, James L. W. West III, and David S. Brown—who’ll introduce us to the political, popular culture, and philosophical influences that tend to get overlooked. This will be a fun session that’ll take you on a deep archeological dive into the Jazz Age!

Click HERE to watch on YouTube!

8. Monday, July 12, 2021, at 1 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. UK

Where in the World are Scott and Zelda?

If you’re a Fitzgerald fan you probably know the glamorous sites associated with the couple: Paris, New York, Rome, Lausanne and Vevey, Montgomery (well, OK, maybe not Montgomery … but it’s still important since they met here). In this webinar hosts Gail Sinclair and Kirk Curnutt will take you on a quick tour of sites special to the couple’s work that may get overlooked …. places off the beaten Fitzgerald track, so to speak. And you’re definitely going to want to be there when board member Philip McGowan beams in with a special guest to announce where we plan to host our 2023 conference!

Plus A Final Special Event:

2. Wednesday, July 14, 2021 at 1 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. UK

Academic Writing and Publishing Workshop

We’re wrapping up Fitzgerald Summer School with an exciting roundtable for emerging scholars, junior faculty, and literary enthusiasts on the academic publishing marketplace. Join Fitzgerald Review managing editor Kirk Curnutt and Hemingway Review editor Suzanne del Gizzo as they explore the dos and don’ts of writing, submitting, and revising. We’ll be joined by special guests, including Lee Zimmerman, editor of Twentieth Century Literature; Aurora Bell, acquisitions editor at the University of South Carolina Press; and James W. Long, acquisitions editor at Louisiana State University Press.

Click HERE to watch on YouTube!