Dear Friends, Colleagues, Members of the IEMFS,
The 7th of June always marks for us two anniversaries – a sad one as E. M. Forster passed away on this day in 1970 and a joyful one as our Society was established exactly forty years later in 2010. The twelfth anniversary of the foundation of our Society is a good moment to look back on our activities during last months.
We started 2021 with the publication of the special issue of Language and Literary Studies of Warsaw (10/2020) which was conceived as a way of replacing the major conference at Cambridge which had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. The whole issue with fifteen articles, book and film reviews is available here https://academic-journals.eu/pl/czasopisma/language-and-literary-studies-of-warsaw/n,280,
We quickly followed up with another the publication. This time it was an edited volume of articles dedicated to EMF which was a much delayed result of the 2018 conference held in Ludwigsburg. The volume The World of E. M. Forster – E. M. Forster and the World is available at https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6984-3 and you can find a review at https://academic-journals.eu/pl/czasopisma/language-and-literary-studies-of-warsaw/n,280,
We followed through with an online conference held on the 51st anniversary of Forster’s death entitled E. M. Forster – Shaping the Space of Culture. If you missed it, you will be able to find a detailed report here http://pjes.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PJES_7-2_18-Kwiatkowska.pdf the call for papers here http://society.emforster.de/conference-2021 and the book of abstracts here http://society.emforster.de/conference-2021/book-of-abstracts-2 We are very grateful to all who joined us through the Machine to celebrate the anniversary in a proper academic way. It was truly a long day to remember to all of us.
When a conference ends the real work only begins as it is time to prepare the conference volume. This time we abused the hospitality of Polish Journal of English Studies again and took over the issue 7.2/2021. The work took us some more time than we had originally planned but ultimately the issue is ready with ten more papers, book reviews and a critical bibliography of E. M. Forster – it can be accessed at http://pjes.edu.pl/issues/7-2-2021/ but we also have printed copies!
Please, help us reach more readers with the publication, share the link trough your social media or by e-mail. If you are on academia.edu and you have what they call AuthorRank you can recommend the issue there –https://www.academia.edu/76514397/Polish_Journal_of_English_Studies_7_2_2021 – or the Bibliography – https://www.academia.edu/55057275/E_M_Forster_A_Bibliography_of_Critical_Studies – click on the link, below the description there is a list of options, starting with “Download”, go to the last (with three vertical dots) and choose “Recommend”. It will be shown to other scholars – people who follow you but also those who share similar academic interests.
The Society keeps on growing incessantly. There are 138 of us at the moment. We try to include in the list of members links to their websites so as to make communication between members easier so check the list every now and then. Perhaps you will find there somebody you would like to get in touch with. Our watchword is “Only connect!” after all.
We keep on delivering news about Forster and all related (sometimes only slightly…) topics through our social media channels – the FB page https://www.facebook.com/IEMFS and our FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/448009452056029/ – our webpage http://society.emforster.de/ and, most recently, we are on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Interna06416174 with our Toshiyuki Nakamichi in charge. Please, share, comment, follow, re-tweet! We are always happy to promote any Forster-related activities through our channels!
Another busy year has ended but our work goes on so stay tuned for more news about our activities!
The Board of the IEMFS
Krzysztof Fordoński
Anna Kwiatkowska
Heiko Zimmermann
PS HarperCollins celebrated the 52nd anniversary of Forster’s death with yet another novel inspired by Forster’s biography – Greenland by David Santos Donaldson is out today – https://www.harpercollins.com/products/greenland-david-santos-donaldson?variant=39696451731490
KF