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From Poe to Paris to Papa: LSU English Professor Gerald Kennedy explores America's literary history
Key West ... Cuba. ... Paris ... even Ketchum, Idaho ... If Ernest Hemingway once called it home, LSU English Professor J. Gerald Kennedy has probably been there. In 1994, Kennedy joined Hemingway's youngest son, Gregory, for the dedication of a plaque marking the author's first apartment in Paris. In 1998, as part of the Hemingway Society Board of Directors, Kennedy joined other board members for a meeting in Ketchum, Idaho, and toured the house where Hemingway took his own life in 1961. In 2002, he was part of a delegation that was greeted by Fidel Castro at the Finca Vigia, the house in Cuba where Hemingway lived and wrote several of his greatest works. All in all, an interesting path for someone who made his name writing about Edgar Allan Poe. Kennedy, William A. Read Professor of English, earned his doctorate from Duke in 1973 and wrote his dissertation on Poe, an author with whom he had been fascinated since junior high. Shortly after earning his degree, he was hired by LSU and he began a course that would lead to success in academic publishing and an immersion in the world of Hemingway, one of the most popular, controversial and flamboyant authors of the 20th century. Kennedy taught various courses related to Hemingway and the "Lost Generation" early in his LSU career and, in 1978-79, he spent a year in France as part of the Fulbright program. The year proved fruitful for Kennedy, as it helped inspire him to write what would become his "breakthrough" book on Poe, Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing, which was published by Yale Press in 1987. The year also inspired him to create the LSU in Paris program upon his return.  In turn, Kennedy's involvement with the LSU in Paris program put him more in touch with the writers of the "Lost Generation," such as Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. On his visits, he would take students around the city to see the places frequented or lived in by the authors during their years in Paris. He says this experience caused him to consider the influence of place and how each writer represented the city in print. This train of thought would eventually lead to another book, Imagining Paris: Exile, Writing, and American Identity, published by Yale Press in 1993. It was during the extensive research for this book that Kennedy became involved in the Hemingway Society. After attending a number of the group's meetings, the association became permanent. He directed the Hemingway-Fitzgerald Conference in Paris in 1994, and, in 1998, he was elected to the Hemingway society's board. In 2000, he was chosen to serve as vice president for permissions with the Hemingway Foundation, which is the "legal side" of the society that controls the rights to the author's letters. "It's definitely been an interesting job," says Kennedy, explaining that the position has led to a number of interesting experiences. For instance, in November 2002, he was invited to be a part of a delegation of Hemingway experts, government officials, and members of Hemingway's family, who visited Hemingway's home in Cuba. The purpose of the trip was to announce a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to preserve the Hemingway papers and books that remain in the house, which is located just outside Havana.
Kennedy and the others in the delegation visited the house, known as the Finca Vigia, where Hemingway lived until 1960. The interior of the home, kept in the state in which Hemingway left it more than 40 years ago, is protected by the Cuban government and off limits to tourists, but Kennedy and the delegation were allowed to go inside. They were even given the chance to look into the basement where a variety of Hemingway's personal letters, photographs, manuscripts, and thousands of books are stored. The delegation was joined by members of Cuba's Ministry of Culture for a ceremony marking the beginning of the unique collaborative effort to protect the Hemingway documents. The emotion Kennedy felt at seeing the Hemingway home was topped only by the unexpected arrival of Fidel Castro, who stopped by to sign documents promising Cuba's cooperation in the project. "It was an intensely exciting event," he said. "It was pure theater when Castro arrived and walked into the home's garden area."
While in Cuba, Kennedy was interviewed for a documentary film, titled "Hemingway in Cuba," that was being made by a Hemingway niece who works for public television in Florida. As a member of the Hemingway Foundation board, Kennedy says he will follow the preservation project's progress with great interest. In addition to a chapter in Imagining Paris, Kennedy has written a number of essays on Hemingway and co-edited the book French Connections: Hemingway and Fitzgerald Abroad, published by St. Martin's Press in 1998. For his latest project, however, Kennedy is returning to the world of an old "friend ." The book that he is currently writing, tentatively titled Writing America's Narrative: Literary Nationalism in the Age of Poe, concentrates on the period just after the War of 1812, a time when the young nation's literary elite—including Poe—were debating the merits of a "national literature" that moved away from British influence and built an American identity through letters, novels, memoirs and tales. Kennedy describes it as a work about "America's literary nation-building" and, he says, it is particularly appropriate in light of current world events. Indeed, the project has already earned the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Contact Rob Anderson | LSU
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