eighteenth century

Scholars working in any area of Romanticism are invited to submit proposals for the annual meeting of the International Conference on Romanticism (ICR) to be hosted by Clemson University and held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Greenville, South Carolina.

Performance, Politics, and Play

September 13-16, 2018

New York City

In response to the “performative turn” in the humanities, the ongoing interest in bio- and body-politics, and the growing attention to leisure, dance, and sport studies, the International Society for Cultural History invites paper and panel proposals for its 2018 annual conference on Performance, Politics, and Play. Scholars working on any historical period or location are encouraged to explore this theme. Topics may include (but are by no means limited to):

–  performative/bodily practices of politics and play

–  political performances

While scholars of Early America are often careful to avoid anachronism, we are living in a moment of profound contemporary connections with communication networks of the past. In the Age of Revolutions, the creation and dissemination of information cultivated and complicated shifts in political ideology, commercial practices, and imperial infrastructure. Questions of access in these networks, of who can create information, who can circulate and commodify it, and on what terms, directly intersects with ongoing explorations of textual transformation in digital studies.

Maritime Animals

Telling stories of animals at sea

Two-day international conference

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, UK

April 26-27, 2019

Keynote speakers

Thom van Dooren      

William Gervase Clarence-Smith

One of the original bestselling authors, Jane Austen (1775-1817) has successfully managed to bridge the gap between what is often perceived as the non-negotiable chasm between canonical and popular literature. Her works, two centuries after her demise, are, in fact without exaggeration, more popular now than in her own period. Once written off as an author who provides the readers with a limited perspective of the world — as her characters are seemingly unperturbed by political events, Austen shows unparalleled finesse in depicting the characters and setting using a “fine brush” to artistically explore and exploit her “two inches of ivory”. What is evident, debates regarding her subject matter notwithstanding, is that Austen’s popularity has not faded.