Harold Pinter and Academia - Harold Pinter Society

Harold Pinter Society

In 1986, at an annual convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), Steven H. Gale, who became the organization's first president, brought together several American academic scholars to form The Harold Pinter Society, which later became an Allied Organization of the MLA and an Associated Organization of the Midwest Modern Language Association (M/MLA). The Pinter Society is international in membership and scope, according to the masthead of The Pinter Review and the Society's Webpages (home page). According to the website of the International Pinter Society, its members are "dedicated to studying, celebrating, and appraising the works of this prolific and frequently enigmatic writer" (home page). As an MLA Allied Organization, it organizes "a business meeting, programs in which scholars present papers, and related social events at the MLA annual convention." The home page also lists the officers of the Society: President Ann C. Hall (Ohio Dominican University); Vice President Mark Taylor-Batty (University of Leeds), who designs and maintains the Society's website; and Treasurer Judith Roof (Rice University), who edits and distributes its newsletters to an electronic subscribers' mailing list. The most recent newsletters can be downloaded from the Society's website.