Lois Overbeck Director, The Letters of Samuel Beckett Project, Department of English, Emory Curator: Chercher, an open-access website “The End is in the Beginning. And yet you go on." Lois will present a brief overview of the Editorial Project, begun in 1985 by Samuel Beckett, that became affiliated with the Laney Graduate School at Emory in 1990. With the assistance of Emory graduate and undergraduate students from many disciplines, as well as the support of many faculty colleagues at Emory, the four volumes of Beckett's selected letters were published by Cambridge University Press (2009-2016). While over 16,000 letters were consulted and transcribed by the four editors, only about 2500 were selected for publication. It seemed important to make more of these letters accessible for future scholarship. With the approval of the Beckett estate, we worked with the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship to develop an open-access website to provide a finding-aid and index of letters that have been published or are in public archives around the world. Chercher is intended to be a living archive. Once again, it is former Emory graduate students (now professionals in the field) who form the Advisory Board charged with continuing to discover, transcribe, and incorporate new materials into this website. By the end of this year, we plan to deposit the Research Collection of the Letters of Samuel Beckett with the Rose Library at Emory. From the beginning, Emory and particularly the library, has been home to the project. Without grants from the NEH, other awards and fellowships, and gifts from individual donors, this project would not have been possible. We are grateful for the hands and minds of so many. The presentation will include a few stories from along the way, a glimpse of Chercher, some words from students who were involved in the work of the edition, and an opportunity to meet some of our collaborators. |