Events for
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Annual Conference - James Fenimore Cooper Society
DATES: Sunday, July 13 - Thursday, July 17, 2003
PLACE: State University of New York, Oneonta, NY
GENERAL INFO: http://www.oneonta.edu/academics/english/cooper.htm
Michael Williams, he of the LOTM Dissertation, [of which a chapter is largely devoted to this web site and its spawned community - still in the trying-to-find-a-publisher-stage] will be speaking on Tuesday, July 15 @ 2:15 PM.
His program:
"Cora and Alice in Hollywood: Cooper's Women on the Big Screen"
A presentation that traces, across multiple film
adaptations of The Last of the Mohicans, the various manifestations of
Cooper's famous binary pair of women, the Munro sisters Cora and Alice. Some
of the most interesting criticism of the last two decades on The Last of the
Mohicans has been in feminist approaches to the novel. Little of this
insight has extended to scholarship on the multiple film adaptations,
however. Adaptations of this novel each intersect with issues of American
national identity differently, in ways that are related to the social and
political climate in the period of each film's production. The evolving
screen representation of Cooper's women demonstrates that American national
identity is a gendered construct-and that conceptions of the American female
have likewise evolved, over the 85 year history of Mohicans adaptations.
This presentation will draw, quite selectively, on my recently completed
Ph.D. dissertation, and will focus on the three major films in the Mohicans
adaptation chain: 1920 (dirs. Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown), 1936
(dir. George B. Seitz), and 1992 (dir. Michael Mann). I will be using clips
from each film to make my points comparatively. I will demonstrate that
there are conceptions of distinctly female American national identity, that
such conceptions are as shifting and subject to negotiation as national
identity in general, and that this is particularly visible in adaptations of
The Last of the Mohicans. Two main lines of analysis support this argument.
First, the binarism that defines the character of the two sisters is not the
mythic one of Fair/Dark, as critics such as John McWilliams have suggested,
but rather, Old/New World, that is, American/European. This structure is
perhaps most noticeable via an examination of the contrast between Cora's
increasing confidence and activism and Alice's opposite evolution from the
flighty blonde of early versions to Jodhi May's suicidal passivity in 1992.
Film clips will tell the tale, particularly in a comparison of the climactic
cliff-top confrontation scene.
Second, these films address very particular dimensions of the "American
woman." Every version of Mohicans activates, in its own way, issues of
violence and militarism as defining elements of American history and
character. Representations of Cooper's women-here, particularly, Cora
Munro-vary distinctively in just this area: as characters who are not just
defined by their wartime experiences, but who are increasingly able to
participate actively, who are as confident and capable of violence as their
male counterparts.
The Full Program:
SUNDAY, JULY 13, 2003
4:30 pm Registration
in Room 104,
Morris Conference Center
5:30 pm Reception/Cocktail
Otsego Grille: downstairs, Morris Conference Center
6:00 pm Welcoming Dinner
Otsego Grille Room
7:00 pm Welcome & Introductions
by President Alan B. Donovan
Otsego Grille
MONDAY, JULY 14
All lectures will be presented in the Catalog Room, room 118,
On the first floor of the Milne Library
8:30 am Continental Breakfast
available outside The Catalog Room, Milne Library 118
9:30 am Daniel Larkin. SUNY College at Oneonta. “James Fenimore
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