Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Babbitt and the 102nd anniversary of the publication of Main Street.
Thursday, July 14
7 p.m. Welcome, Sally E. Parry, Executive Director, Sinclair Lewis Society
Virtual Tour of the Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Jim Umhoefer, President, Sinclair Lewis Foundation (the tour starts at 4:45 in the Keynote Video)
Keynote Jim Gambone, “Making The Life and Loves of Sinclair Lewis—A Filmmaker’s Journey”
Friday, July 15
10 a.m. Welcome, Ralph Goldstein, President, Sinclair Lewis Society
International Speaker
Isabel Marín Gómez, University of Murcia (Spain)
“The Spanish Translation of Babbitt and Freedom of Expression in Culture and Art in Spain”
Panel 1
George Babbitt, American Citizen
Robert L. McLaughlin, Chair
Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“The Man Nobody Knows: George Babbitt and Religion”
Robert L. McLaughlin, Illinois State University
“Outside Looking In, Inside Looking Out: Group Affiliation and Disaffiliation in Babbitt“
George Killough, College of St. Scholastica
“Sinclair Lewis’s Display of Language Failure in Babbitt“
Break
1 p.m. Panel 2
Social Pressures in Main Street and Babbitt
Shaun F. Richards, Chair
Shaun F. Richards
“‘Our Standardized American Citizen’: Boosterism as Provincial Pride (and Prejudice) in Babbitt“
Richard Bellon, Michigan State University
“Brave New Main Street”
Greg Davis
“Exploring Zenith: Narrative Technique in Babbitt“
2:30 p.m. Panel 3
Comparative and International Connections to Lewis
Ralph Goldstein, Chair
Sean Nye, University of Southern California
“It Can Happen Here: The Transatlantic Exchanges of Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy Thompson, and Lion Feuchtwanger”
Ralph Goldstein
“‘To Swing Constantly from Optimism to Pessimism and Back’: The Curious Relationship between H.G. Wells and Sinclair Lewis”
