Sigma Tau Delta Centennial Convention

 
Sigma Tau Delta Centennial Convention website: EnglishConvention.org

Sigma Tau Delta will hold its Centennial Convention in spring 2024. Convention is a truly wonderful event that allows hundreds of Sigma Tau Deltans from around the globe to gather in one locale, share experiences and ideas, be recognized for their achievements, and participate in the official side of the Society. At the convention, opportunities abound to meet face to face with other students, faculty, and respected authors, make new friends, discuss the disciplines of the English language and literature, and enjoy the offerings of the convention's location.

Dates and Location

April 3 - 6, 2024
Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark
St. Louis, MO

Theme: In Flux

As Sigma Tau Delta approaches its centennial anniversary (1924-2024), its many facets reflect the state of English-related studies: in flux, in transition, flexible, fluid, evolving, tradition and convention absorbing influence and innovation. New subjects, authors and audiences, media, and concern are built upon a foundation of respect for history and the wisdom of predecessors while always in process of revising and renewing them for each succession of students and teachers.

The Centennial Convention will be a good time to reflect on the changes in culture and higher education in particular over these decades. In 1924 when Sigma Tau Delta was founded at Dakota Wesleyan University, the total number of students enrolled in higher education in the US, predominately affluent white men, was a little more than half a million (double the number from a decade before, according to the Higher Education Biennial Survey, 1922-1924 [1926]). Today, that number is over 10.3 million, including a much wider range of the population (though many groups are still woefully underrepresented.)

Published that year were novels by Agatha Christie (Poirot Investigates), Edna Ferber (So Big) E.M. Forster (A Passage to India), Thomas Mann (The Magic Mountain), and Edith Wharton; books of poetry by HD (Hilda Dolittle), A.A. Milne, Pablo Neruda, and W.B. Yeats; plays by Bertolt Brecht, Sean O’Casey (Juno and the Paycock), and Eugene O’Neill (Desire Under the Elms), and nonfiction by W.E.B DuBois and H.G. Wells—and, ominously, Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf). Robert Frost received the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for New Hampshire; and Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved their Hogarth Press to their new home in Bloomsbury. Perhaps signifying a transition from modernism to post-modernism, James Baldwin and Truman Capote were born; and Joseph Conrad and Franz Kafka died. We expect that many presentations will explore the myriad ways in which the precursors inform and are transformed by their descendants.

It is appropriate that this Centennial Convention will be celebrated in St. Louis, a crossroads and river confluence, the “gateway to the west,” a meeting ground for Indigenous Nations since before European exploration. We will gather to share our stories, to meet new people and old friends, and to learn new ways of seeing.

Common Reader

Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020, by Carl Phillips

Upcomming Dates

Sept 18 - Submissions Open

Oct 23 - Submissions Due

Dec 13 - Paper Submission Decisions

 Jan 4 - Registration Opens