“Lost New York, 1609-2009,” NYU, 2-3 October 2009.

All sessions are free and open to the public.

The Department of English, Humanities Initiative, and Fales Library
and Special Collections at New York University are pleased to announce
the full schedule for a conference, “Lost New York, 1609-2009,” to be
held at NYU on 2-3 October 2009. All sessions are free and open to the
public.

Has New York always been a lost city?

Lost New York marks the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage for
the Dutch and the 200th anniversary of Washington Irving’s legendary
reimagining of this New World encounter in his Knickerbocker’s History
of New York. A wide array of conference participants will explore the
dynamics of creativity and destruction, nostalgia and invention, that
have for centuries marked efforts to “Do New York,” as Henry James
advised Edith Wharton. Lectures and panels will address the
relationships between literary imagination and the archives, between
migrations and displacements, between loss and remembrance, and
between preservation and development in the long and storied history
of one of the world’s great cities.

FRIDAY, 2 OCT

4:00 PM — OPENING PLENARY: RECLAIMING THE DUTCH (Fales Library, 70
Wash Sq South, 3rd floor)

Joanne van der Woude (Harvard University), “Knickerbocker’s Archive:
How Writings from New Netherland Shaped American Literature”

Elizabeth Bradley (New York Public Library), “The Great Knickerbocker
Hoax: Washington Irving and the Creation of Old New York”

Lytle Shaw (New York University), “New Amsterdam’s Chadwijks”

5:30 – 6:30 PM — RECEPTION AND EXHIBITION OPENING: “LOST NEW YORK”
(Fales Library Gallery)

SATURDAY, 3 OCT.

All Saturday sessions will be held at 13-19 University Place, room 102

9:00 AM: Coffee and tea

9:15 AM – 10:45 AM: FROM ADRIAEN VAN DER DONCK TO RICHARD HELL:
REFLECTIONS ON CURATING “LOST NEW YORK”

John Easterbrook (New York University) on Adriaen van der Donck’s
New Netherland

Kristen Doyle Highland (New York University) on the history of “Gotham”

Jane Greenway Carr (New York University) on myth and performance in
bohemian Greenwich Village

John Melillo (New York University) on Lower East Side poetics, 1960-1980

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM: MORNING KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Daphne Brooks (Princeton University), “‘Blue Light ‘Til Dawn’: Jackie
‘Moms’ Mabley’s Showtime at the Apollo”

12:30 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM: BLOGGING THE APOCALYPSE: NEW MEDIA, NEW GENRES, AND
THE LITERATURE OF A LOST CITY

Sukhdev Sandhu (New York University), moderator

Panelists:

Lost City:
<http://lostnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/http://lostnewyorkcity.blogspot.com

Ephemeral New York:
<http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com

Flaming Pablum: Vanishing Downtown:
<http://vassifer.blogs.com/photos/my_vanishing_downtown/index.htmlhttp://vassifer.blogs.com/photos/my_vanishing_downtown/index.html

Bowery Boogie: <http://www.boweryboogie.com/http://www.boweryboogie.com

4:00 PM – 5:30 PM: AFTERNOON KEYNOTE CONVERSATION: DAVID FREELAND AND
MARSHALL BERMAN IN DIALOGUE

Marshall Berman (City College of New York and Graduate Center of the
City University of New York), author of All That Is Solid Melts into
Air and co-editor of New York Calling

David Freeland (independent writer, New York City), author of
Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM: Closing reception

Conference sponsored by the Department of English and Humanities
Initiative at New York University. Exhibit sponsored by Fales Library
and Special Collections, on view through November 6.

Organized by Cyrus R. K. Patell and Bryan Waterman. For more
information visit <http://ahistoryofnewyork.com/http://ahistoryofnewyork.com

Peter J. Wosh
Director, Archives/Public History Program
History Department
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York NY 10012
Phone: (212) 998-8601
Fax: (212) 995-4017
http://history.fas.nyu.edu/object/history.gradprog.archivespublichistory.html