Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000117, Thu, 30 Sep 1993 16:28:52 -0700

Subject
To the Electronic Electorate (fwd)
Date
Body
NABOKOVIANS: The following ballot is solely for those who are (or are now
becoming) members of the International Nabokov Society. Please note that
your completed ballot should returned NOT TO NABOKV-L, NOR TO ITS EDITOR
(D. Barton Johnson) AT CHTODEL@HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU, but to Professor Gennady
Barabtarlo at GRAGB@MIZZOU1.BITNET.

NABOKV-L EDITOR



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 11:32:51 CDT
From: Gene Barabtarlo <GRAGB@MIZZOU1.bitnet>
To: nabokv-l@ucsbvm.bitnet
Subject: To the Electronic Electorate



----------------------------Original message----------------------------
As president of the I(nternational) N(abokov) S(ociety), I should like
to take advantage of the network to distribute electoral ballots for the
office of vice-president of the Society for the next two years. The current VP,
John Burt Foster, Jr., will replace me as president come January, to hold the
post in 1994-95. Tradition and logic demand that the two offices be occupied
by scholars from the two fields that are most relevant to our subject, Russian
and English -- a somewhat Lebanese arrangement but a reasonable one. This time
a Russian candidate is eligible, and rather extensive canvassing has produced
two persons willing to be nominated, Professor CHRISTINE RYDEL of Grand Valley
State University (Michigan) and Professor Emeritus DONALD BARTON JOHNSON of
the University of California at Santa Barbara. The duties of the VP of INS
include organizing and chairing one Nabokov panel at the MLA convention (an
annual after-Christmas affair); he also ought to be willing to assume pre-
sident's responsibilities two years thereafter.
Instead of resorting once again to the curiously undemocratic practice
of co-opting a single candidate and subjecting him to a flaccid vote by a score
of thoroughy jaded attendants of one of the very last MLA sessions (some of
whom are perfect strangers driven to the panel by curiosity or by mistake)
John Foster and I have decided to have a more representative and meaningful
election. To this end, I ask all among you who are members of the Society or
are going to join it this year (by sending $9 to the Secretary, Professor
Stephen Jan Parker, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Kansas,
Lawrence, KS 66045 -- THE NABOKOVIAN, the Society's journal, comes out twice
a year; the next issue will print a complete index of all the previous 30),
to return your vote to me directly (i.e. at GRAGB@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu),
rather than to the network, voting for either candidate or writing in yours.
The ballot you return will be kept confidential (that is, known only to John
Foster and me), and the results will be announced at the MLA's business meeting
and in THE NABOKOVIAN. Below are condensed bio-data supplied by the candidates:

"D. Barton Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Russian at the University of
California at Santa Barbara, has been active in Nabokov studies for some twenty
years. He is the author of over forty publications on Nabokov, including the 19
85 WORLDS IN REGRESSION: SOME NOVELS OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV. He has also edited
special Nabokov issues of RUSSIAN LITERATURE TRIQUARTERLY and CANADIAN-AMERICAN
SLAVIC STUDIES. A founding member and past president of the Nabokov Society, he
has arranged numerous Nabokov sessions at conferences of the MLA, AAASS, and
AATSEEL, and presented papers at many meetings here and abroad. Most recently,
he has launched the scholarly journal NABOKOV STUDIES, and established an af-
filiated electronic discussion group NABOKV-L.



Christine A. Rydel is Professor of Russian at the Grand Valley State
University. She is an expert in the Russian literature of the 19th century
(particularly poetry), as well as modern Russian poetry. Among her published
work there is THE ARDIS ANTHOLOGY OF RUSSIAN ROMANTICISM (1984), a standard
textbook in many courses on Russian literature of the period. She is editor
of the volume on the "Literature of the Age of Pushkin and Gogol" in the
Dictionary of Literary Biography series (Gayle Publishers). Professor Rydel
has prepared for publication the comprehensive NABOKOV WHO'S WHO: A COMPLETE
GUIDE TO ALL CHARACTERS, CHARACTER TYPES, AND PROPER NAMES IN THE WORKS OF VLAD
IMIR NABOKOV (Ardis, due out this year). She has organized, chaired, and read
papers at numerous Nabokov's panels at the MLA and Slavic conventions."


Your vote will be merged with the regular mail ballots, to be sent to those mem
bers of the society who do not subscribe to N-L.
Kindly send any questions regarding this matter at my address.

Thank you very much indeed.

Gene Barabtarlo