Marianne Moore: An International Conference
15-17 April 2027 University of Cambridge
CALL FOR PAPERS Deadline: 1 September 2026
Marianne Moore 2027, hosted by the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge, will follow the highly successful formats of previous Moore conferences (Penn State 2003, Houston 2015, Buffalo 2020, Stanford 2025) with a schedule of panels, round tables and Q&As for a single audience over two and a half days. Exactly 100 years after Moore herself visited Cambridge, the purpose of the conference is to bring together an international and various group of readers with a strong predilection for thinking and writing about poetry, and put them to work newly and again on this singular, difficult, and discriminating poet. The schedule will take shape around readings between Marianne Moore and other writers. As well as revisiting the poet’s declared influences (Gordon Craig, Henry James, Blake, the minor prophets, and Hardy), contemporaries (Loy, Eliot, H.D., Pound, Hughes, Williams, Stevens), and successors (Auden, Bishop, Merrill, Ashbery, Schiff), a distinctive purpose of this conference is to call on the expertise of colleagues working in periods beyond modernist studies who may not yet have focused on Moore’s work, so as to identify less likely kinships and foster unexpected matches. What might an early modernist find in Moore’s verse forms? What would a scholar of medieval bestiaries see in her curated creatures? What does a Francophone listener hear in her translations? How might an expert in contemporary media negotiate her archive? The Cambridge English Faculty has a long and distinguished history as a centre of excellence in poetry and poetics. This conference will bring together established Moore scholars, early-career colleagues, and postgraduate students working in and beyond modernisms, as well as newcomers to Moore with expertise in other periods and fields.
Please send proposals of 250 words for 15-20 minute papers along with a brief bio of the proposer to:
mm2027cambridge@gmail.com
Deadline: 1 September 2026
Organisers: Edward Allen, Fiona Green, George Mather, Josie O’Donoghue
