Tennessee Williams Scholars Conference

By Tracy Cunningham | March 2, 2024 |

Williams Research Center at the Historic New Orleans Collection
410 Chartres Street

About the TWSC

Founded in 1995, the Tennessee Williams Scholars Conference is a full day of sessions led by highly acclaimed Williams scholars from across the US and abroad. As part of the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, the TWSC coincides with the publication of the Tennessee Williams Annual Review, founded in 1998. The journal’s managing editor, Margit Longbrake, a member of the TW Festival Board of Directors, serves as the TWSC codirector with Bess Rowen, Villanova University.

The day of scholarly presentations, discussions, and a staged reading is held at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to the stewardship of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South, and a partner organization to the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival.

The TWSC is open to the public and is for anyone who wants to know more about the life and works of Tennessee Williams.

The Historic New Orleans Collection presents the 29th annual
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS SCHOLARS CONFERENCE

Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, New Orleans
$10 per session or Scholars Conference Pass, LitPass, or VIP Pass

FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2026

9:00–9:15 AM
Welcome and opening remarks from the conference codirectors: Margit Longbrake, Historic New Orleans Collection; Bess Rowen, Villanova University

9:15–10:30 AM
New Currents in Williams Studies
Emerging scholars use the lenses of performance art, Southern studies, queer time, and a fashion studies approach to the dressed body to shed new light on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Rose Tattoo, The Night of the Iguana, lesser-known late works, and more.
Moderator: Matthew P. Smith, Tulane University
Panelists:
Lital Dotan, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Pune Dracker, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Cody Norris, Miami University of Ohio
Sloan Garner, University of Georgia
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LITPass

10:45 AM–12:15 PM
The Catastrophe of Success
From the moment The Glass Menagerie became a sensation in 1945, fame took a starring role in shaping Williams’s life and career, a part it continues to play in the performance and reception of his work in the 21st century. Scholars with expertise in literary analysis, history, performance, and directing discuss the various blessings and burdens that did and still do go along with Williams’s personal fame, the fame of his works, and the fame of the actors and directors involved.
Moderator: Bess Rowen, Villanova University
Panelists:
Kelly I. Aliano, New-York Historical Society
Jaclyn Bethany, Independent Scholar
Michael S. D. Hooper, Independent Scholar
David Kaplan, Independent Scholar
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LITPass

12:15–2:00 PM
Lunch (on your own)

2:00–3:30 PM
Roundtable: Writers and Directors Influenced by Tennessee Williams
What do revered 20th-century playwright Lorraine Hansberry (author of A Raisin in the Sun), boundary-pushing auteur John Waters (director of Pink Flamingoes and Hairspray), celebrated Irish dramatist Brian Friel (author of Dancing at Lughnasa), and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwrights Eboni Booth (2024) and Branden Jacobs Jenkins (2025) have in common? Esteemed academics trace Williams’s surprising hidden and not-so-hidden influences on groundbreaking authors and works in two centuries.
Moderator: Bess Rowen, Villanova University
Panelists:
Stephen Cedars, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Benjamin Gillespie, Santa Clara University
John “Ray” Proctor, Tulane University
Sara Warner, Cornell University
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LITPass

3:45–4:45 PM
Staged Reading: “Fin du Monde (A Postscript to the Casualty List)”
Theater director and emeritus professor Tom Mitchell and members of the University of Illinois theater company present a staged reading of a previously unpublished short story by Tennessee Williams, in which a gay couple in the French Quarter muses on how the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stands to change the lives of artists and outsiders forever. An experienced editor and researcher, Mitchell provides additional historical context for the story and insight into Williams’s circle and way of life in the years before and during World War II.
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LITPass