CALL FOR PAPERS
C19: THE SOCIETY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICANISTS
“Unsettling”
State College, Pennsylvania
March 17-20, 2016
Hosted by Penn State University
C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists seeks paper and panel submissions for its fourth biennial conference, which will take place March 17-20, 2016 at the Nittany Lion Inn at Penn State University in State College. We invite individual paper or group proposals on U.S. literary culture—broadly conceived—during the long nineteenth century.
Our conference theme is “Unsettling,” which takes its inspiration from
recent revisionist approaches to the methodologies, geographies,
languages, and texts that disturb, divert, and reconstitute American
literary, historical, and cultural studies. Leaving open ended what is
being unsettled, the theme challenges the notion of a defined field
focusing on a specific set of texts. In contrast to the assumption of a
shared practice or single canon, “unsettling” recognizes the fragmented
and contradictory condition of US and American literary studies. The
Program Committee is particularly interested in challenging the belief
that questions of race and racism are settled. If anything, recent events
from Ferguson to the immigration debates point to the unfinished business
of race, ethnicity, and nationalism and the ongoing relevance of the
nineteenth century and its antecedents. “Unsettling” also points to the
effects of a historical period when the United States sought new
settlements and sometimes took territory by force. How did the effects of
political organization, economic conditions, and social hierarchies in the
nineteenth century leave unsettled today’s socio-political challenges? How
has the field responded to a transformation in what is studied as part of
literary culture? How have new approaches, methodologies, and archives
opened the field of study?
Topics and approaches might include but are not limited to transnational,
hemispheric, and oceanic studies; the impact of new media and digital
technologies on research and teaching practices in the field; critical
race, ethnicity, indigeneity, border and diaspora studies; historicism,
surface reading and theory; history of the book and print culture;
critical geography and global approaches; gender, sexuality, and queer
studies; religion, belief, and secularization; democracy and citizenship;
the body, age, affect, and disability studies; science and technology
studies; spectatorship, collecting, and museum studies; migration,
multilingualism, and translation; theories of the archive and the canon.
Format
C19 welcomes proposals for roundtables, workshops, dialogues, and novel
presentation formats, as well as traditional panels and individual paper
submissions. We are especially interested in proposals that reflect a
diversity of institutional affiliation, academic rank, and disciplinary
background. Please include at least four presenters on a panel. All group
proposals must leave time for discussion (each session is 90 minutes
long). Individuals seeking potential collaborators may wish to use the
discussion board on C19’s Facebook page.
C19: 2016 will once again feature a series of seminars, which were
introduced at the 2014 conference in Chapel Hill. Seminars will provide
participants the opportunity for a collaborative conversation around a
particular topic. Each seminar will be capped at 15 participants and will
be run by a leader with expertise in the topic. Each participant will
submit a five-page position paper before the conference to be read in
advance by the other participants; time in the seminar itself will be
reserved for discussion. Seminar participants will be listed in the
program. Topics will be announced shortly. Participation as both a
presenter and seminar participant will be allowed only as space permits.
Conference participants are limited to one appearance on the program in a
substantive role (presenter, roundtable participant, or respondent), and
one appearance as a session organizer, chair, or speaker/facilitator on a
professional support session. Please submit only one proposal for a
substantive role.
Submission
Proposals will be due on Sept. 1, 2015. Information about submitting is
forthcoming.
Membership
Please help C19 thrive as an organization by renewing your membership
today. Go to http://c19.psu.edu/membership/join
Program Committee:
Rodrigo Lazo, University of California, Irvine (Chair)
Carla Peterson, University of Maryland, College Park
Xiomara Santamarina, University of Michigan
Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Amherst College (C19 President)
Hester Blum, Penn State University (C19 Vice President)