Hazlitt Society newsletter

May 2010

Dear members of the Hazlitt Society

We were greatly saddened by the death in March of our Founding President, Michael Foot. Many of you will remember his inimitable contribution to the unveiling of the restored memorial to Hazlitt in St Anne’s churchyard, Soho, in April 2003, and his attending the first annual lectures before his health made such visits problematic. This year’s Hazlitt Review will carry tributes from Ian Mayes and Duncan Wu.

Annual Lecture

The Hazlitt Society is delighted to announce that the sixth annual Hazlitt lecture will be given by the veteran former Labour MP TONY BENN at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 at 2pm on Saturday 11 September 2010. The lecture, entitled What We Owe William Hazlitt, will last for about 40 minutes, followed by a question and answer session.

After the lecture, the Committee would like to invite all members who attend to join us for tea or coffee in the foyer of Conway Hall. Refreshments beforehand will be available for purchase either in the foyer from 12.30 or very close by in the pleasant open air café in Red Lion Square.

If you would like to attend, please complete the attached form and return it to Helen Hodgson at the Guardian. We will not be issuing tickets, but we do need to have an idea of the numbers involved.

As in previous years, the lecture is free of charge, so please bring guests. There is, however, an optional subscription of £10 (£5 for those under 25) for the year September 2010 to September 2011,

Hazlitt Day-School

This year marks a decade since the founding of the Hazlitt Day-School by Uttara Natarajan, Tom Paulin and Duncan Wu in 2001. Over the years, the Day School has brought together Hazlitt enthusiasts from across the country, both academics and lay readers. Past speakers have included Jonathan Bate, Simon Bainbridge, David Bromwich, Jon Cook, Gregory Dart, A.C. Grayling, Tim Milnes, Seamus Perry, Uttara Natarajan, Tom Paulin, and John Whale. The tenth Hazlitt Day School will take place at the Old Hall, Hertford College, Oxford, on 5 June 2010. The organizers expect to welcome back a large number of our regular attendees, as well as new participants on this special occasion. There will be a wine reception at the end of the day to celebrate the 10th anniversary.

The programme for the 2010 Day School is as follows:
(All sessions will be chaired by Professor John Barnard)

9.30-9.50 am Registration and arrival; tea and coffee

9.50 am: Welcome by Duncan Wu.

10-11.10 am: Uttara Natarajan (Goldsmiths College, London), ‘On Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays’

11.10-11.30am Coffee

11.30-1pm: Neil Vickers (King’s College, London), ‘Hazlitt and Coleridge as “psychological critics”’
Stephen Burley (Queen Mary College, London), ‘Dissent and Disillusionment in the 1790s: Hazlitt at New College, Hackney’

1-2pm Lunch

2-3.30pm: Marcus Tomalin (Downing College, Cambridge), ‘Hazlitt and the French language’
Ian Patel, (Queen’s College, Cambridge), ‘Hazlitt and paradox’

3.30-3.50 pm Tea

3.50-5 pm: John Whale (University of Leeds), ‘Hazlitt and the sacred’

5.30: A reading from Hazlitt’s works by Tom Paulin (Hertford College, Oxford)

Celebratory drinks

The Hazlitt Review

The Hazlitt Society is pleased to announce the publication of the 2010 issue of The Hazlitt Review, to be launched at the Society’s annual lecture on 11 September 2010. Subscribers to the Society will be entitled to a copy of the Review (£5 to non-subscribers). An annual peer-reviewed journal, The Hazlitt Review seeks to promote and maintain Hazlitt’s standing, both in the academy and to a wider readership, by providing a forum for new writing on Hazlitt, by established scholars as well as more recent entrants in the field.
The third issue will carry tributes to Michael Foot by Ian Mayes and Duncan Wu. Other contributions are as follows: Stephen Burley (Queen Mary, University of London) on Hazlitt Senior’s polemical contributions to the dissenting journals of the time; Marcus Tomalin (Downing College, Cambridge) on Hazlitt’s engagement with grammar and grammarians; Bálint Gárdos (ELTE University, Budapest) on Hazlitt’s pursuit of what is ‘common’, and Richard de Ritter (University of Leeds) on Hazlitt’s ambiguous attitude to print culture. The 2010 issue will also carry a review by Gregory Dart of Marcus Tomalin’s Romanticism and Linguistic Theory: William Hazlitt, Language and Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
The Editorial Board of the Review welcomes submissions on any topic directly relating to Hazlitt. Scholarly essays (4000-7000 words) and reviews should follow the MHRA style. The Board is also happy to consider more informal submissions from Hazlitt’s lay readership. Email Uttara Natajaran or post to Uttara Natarajan, Department of English & Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London SE14 6NW. We regret that we cannot publish material already published or submitted elsewhere.

We look forward to seeing you at this year’s lecture on 11 September.

With warmest good wishes from the Committee

Helen Hodgson
Secretary & Correspondent