Birdsong
Friday, October 24th, 2025
The Keats-Shelley Association of America looks forward to hosting its annual Stuart Curran Symposium on Friday, October 24th, 2025, at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus on the topic of “Birdsong.”
The day's events will feature two panels in the morning—one on birdsong in Romantic and modern and contemporary English-language poetry, another comparing birdsong in Romantic poetry with poetry in other periods, languages, and traditions—a film screening, live music, and a reception!
Attendees will also have the chance to go on a birding walk in Central Park led by Tod Winston, a professional guide and Biodiversity Specialist, NYC Bird Alliance.
The afternoon features a keynote lecture engaging with birdsong in Romantic poetry and environmental studies by Francesca Mackenney, author of Birdsong, Speech, and Poetry: The Art of Composition in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2022).
The day will conclude with a teaching talk by music historian Glenda Goodman accompanied by the live performance of compositions that incorporate birdsong.
We look forward to welcoming you to a symposium that brings together Romantic poetry with poetry of other periods, languages, and places, and in relation to environmental, music, and sound studies.
Program
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus
113 W 60th St (corner of W 60th and Columbus Ave)
12th Floor Lounge
7:30-8:45 Birding Walk in Central Park, led by Tod Winston (Birding Guide and Biodiversity Specialist, NYC Bird Alliance)
9:00am Welcome and Introduction
9:15-10:45 Panel I: Afterlives of Romantic Birdsong in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture
Moderator: Jonathan Mulrooney (College of the Holy Cross)
Eric Eisner (George Mason University), “Birdo: Birdsong, Media Translation, Technology”
Alexander Schlutz (John Jay College and CUNY Graduate Center), “On Not Hearing Keats's Nightingale in a Poem by Peter Reading”
Orrin Wang (University of Maryland, College Park), “The Voice of No-Labor: Fantasy, Ideology, and Escapism in Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’”
11:00-12:30 Panel II: Romantic Birdsong in Comparative and Global Context
Moderator: Omar Miranda (University of San Francisco)
Chris Barrett (Louisiana State University), “The Bird Made World: Science, Song, and the Early Modern Avian Imaginary”
Paresh Chandra (Williams College), “Birdsong, Songbirds, and the Question of Mimesis”
Christopher GoGwilt (Fordham University), “Starling, Bird, Song: The Heart of European Lyric Form”
12:30-1:45 Lunch (on your own)
1:00-2:30 Birding Walk in Central Park, led by Tod Winston (Birding Guide and Biodiversity Specialist, NYC Bird Alliance)
2:00-2:30 Indoor Event: Film Screening
“Singing of the Evening Stars” (2025, 23 minutes), directed by Iris Ni Sang, with support from Xeno Canto and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
2:45-4:00 Keynote Lecture
Francesca Mackenney, Third-Century Research Fellow in Writing and Place at Manchester Metropolitan University, “Stranger Notes: Listening to Environmental Change with John Clare”
Moderator: Chris Rovee (Louisiana State University)
4:15-5:30 Teaching Talk on Birdsong and Music
Glenda Goodman (University of Pennsylvania), with live performances of musical compositions inspired by birdsong.
Répertoire: Maurice Ravel, “Oiseaux Tristes” (piano); Claude Debussy, “Syrinx” (piano and flute); Amy Beach, “Hermit Thrush at Dawn,” “Hermit Thrush at Dusk” (piano).
Pianist: Nelson Padgett. Flutist: Minseo Kim
Moderator: Julie Kim (Fordham University)
5:30-7:30 Reception
This event has also received support from the Fordham University Romanticism Group, the Fordham University English Department, the Byron Society of America, and from a Barnard College Faculty Research Grant.
"Two Orioles," c. 1610, Mughal Period, India. Collection of the Ashmolean, University of Oxford.