President—James Plath, Professor of English, Illinois Wesleyan University (jplath@iwu.edu).

Jim Plath has been involved in Updike criticism and scholarship since the Eighties, when he wrote his dissertation on The Painterly Aspects of John Updike’s Fiction at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His essays on Updike subsequently have been included in Rabbit Tales: Poetry and Politics in John Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ Novels, John Updike and Religion: The Sense of the Sacred and the Motions of Grace, The Cambridge Companion to John Updike, and Critical Insights: John Updike. He is the editor of Conversations with John Updike and of a forthcoming volume to be published by Lehigh University Press, Native Son: John Updike’s Pennsylvania Interviews. Also a Hemingway scholar and the author of Remembering Ernest Hemingway and Historic Photos of Ernest Hemingway, he received his university’s highest award for teaching and scholarship in 2004. 

Vice President and Editor, The John Updike Review—James Schiff, Associate Professor & Director of Undergraduate Studies, University of Cincinnati (james.schiff@uc.edu).

Born and raised in Cincinnati, Jim Schiff received his B.A. from Duke University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University. He is the author or editor of five books on contemporary American fiction, including John Updike Revisited, Updike’s Version: Rewriting the Scarlet Letter, Updike in Cincinnati, and Understanding Reynolds Price. His work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Tin House, American Literature, Critique, Boulevard, Studies in American Fiction, The South Atlantic Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. He is also a regular reviewer of books for newspapers, magazines and journals, and a consulting editor of Critique.  He has served on various boards, including the Duke University Trinity Board of Visitors, the University of Cincinnati Foundation, The Seven Hills School, WCET-TV, and the Mercantile Library.

Secretary—Peter Bailey, Piskor Professor & Department Chair, St. Lawrence University (pbailey@stlawu.edu).

Peter Bailey attended Kenyon College before receiving his B.A. from the New School College, New School of Social Research. The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars provided him with an M.A., and his Ph.D. in English is from the University of Southern California. He is the author of Reading Stanley Elkin(1985), The Reluctant Film Art of Woody Allen (2000) and Rabbit (Un)Redeemed: The Drama of Belief in John Updike’s Fiction (2006)—as well as articles on contemporary American literature and film.

Treasurer—Marshall Boswell, Professor of English, Rhodes College (boswell@rhodes.edu).

A member of the Rhodes English Department since 1996, Marshall Boswell teaches courses in 20th Century American literature and fiction writing. He is the author of John Updike’s Rabbit Tetralogy: Mastered Irony in Motion and Understanding David Foster Wallace. In addition, Marshall has published two works of fiction, the story collection Trouble with Girls (Algonquin 2003), which was an April 2003 Book Sense 76 pick, and the novel, Alternative Atlanta (Delacorte Press 2005), both of which are now available in paperback. Most recently, he completed work as editor and primary contributor for the final volume of a forthcoming four-volume Encyclopedia of American Literature.  His stories have appeared in Playboy, Shenandoah, New England Review, The Missouri Review, and New Stories from the South.  In 2002 he won the Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Teaching, while in 2007 he won the Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity.

Director—Jack De Bellis, Emeritus Professor, Lehigh University (Bjd1@lehigh.edu).

Jack De Bellis is best known for two invaluable resources for Updike scholars: The John Updike Encyclopedia and (with co-author Michael Broomfield) John Updike: A Bibliography of Primary & Secondary Materials, 1948-2007. He is also the editor of John Updike: The Critical Responses to the “Rabbit” Saga and an earlier bibliography, as well as numerous essays, including several on the Rabbit novels for Literature/Film Quarterly.

Director—Sylvie Mathé, Professor of American Literature, Aix-Marseille University (sylvie.mathe@univ-amu.fr).

A charter member of The John Updike Society, Sylvie Mathé is a graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and she wrote her PhD dissertation at the Sorbonne on The Daily and the Sacred in John Updike’s Fiction. She is the author of various articles on Updike in French and in English (“Irreversibility and Nostalgia in ‘The Journey to the Dead,’” “Return to the Self, Return to Sources in Self-Consciousness,” “‘Welcome to the Post-Pill Paradise’: Variations on some figures of Eros in John Updike’s fiction,” “‘Love it or leave it’: America in Red, Grey, and Blue in Rabbit Redux,” “‘What writers are for’: Reflection on John Updike’s Terrorist,” “In Memoriam John Updike [1932-2009]: That ‘Pennsylvania Thing,’” “Under Gallic Eyes: The Case of John Updike’s Ambivalent Reception in France”), as well as of the monograph John Updike: La Nostalgie de l’Amérique (Paris: Belin, 2002). She is a member of the editorial board of The John Updike Review and the director of the online journal E-Rea. Though Updike is not her only center of interest and she has published on a wide range of American writers, he remains the “Midpoint” of her academic geography.

Director—Don Greiner, Carolina Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus, University of South Carolina (dgreiner@sc.rr.com).

Don Greiner “discovered” John Updike while a student at the University of Virginia. He first published books on Stephen Crane, Robert Frost, and John Hawkes before focusing on Updike. His books include The Other John Updike: Poems/Stories/Prose/Play, John Updike’s Novels, and Adultery in the American Novels: Updike, James, Hawthorne. His essays on Updike have been published in such journals as the Journal of Modern Literature, The John Updike Review, and Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, and have been included in Rabbit Tales: Poetry and Politics in John Updike’s “Rabbit” Novels, John Updike and Religion: the Sense of the Sacred and the Motions of Grace, The Cambridge Companion to John Updike, John Updike: the Critical Responses to the “Rabbit” Saga, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Updike in Cincinnati: a Literary Performance, John Updike: Modern Critical Views, Contemporary Authors Bibliographical Series, and HarperCollins Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature. At the University of South Carolina, where he has also served as interim provost, associate provost, and dean of undergraduate studies, he has received fifteen awards for outstanding teaching, as well as the university’s highest award for distinguished research.