For the Northeast Modern Language Association’s (NeMLA’s) 51th Annual Conference, 5-4 March 2020, in Boston, MA, Shaping and Sharing Identities: Spaces, Places, Languages, and Cultures, this session is seeking proposals addressing the topic, A Connecticut Abolitionist in King Arthur’s Court: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s British Reception. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s radical views on slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) took the western world by storm. Nowhere was the response more impassioned than in Great Britain. This panel aims to explore British reception of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the ways the novel fueled public debate over the “Negro Question,” including the plights of blacks and the labor economics of the west, which slaves, so-called “black gold,” bankrolled to help advance Western industrial development.

Please submit a one-page proposal along with a brief bio no later than 30 September 2019. Proposal MUST be submitted via the NeMLA portal (https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/Login).  Direct questions or queries to the organizers, Jude V. Nixon (Jnixon@salemstate.edu) and Nancy L. Schultz (nschultz@salemstate.edu)