cfp.english.upenn.edu

In so ostentatiously connecting the Book of Genesis, the state of nature, and the Atlantic World, John Locke made it so that liberal political-economy would always have to return to America, to grasp its theoretical foundations and to fulfill the destiny of private property. In opening up America as both conceptual origin and commercial imperative, the Second Treatise also participates in a long line of narrative fillings and fulfillments of a theoretically and narratively empty America.

This panel seeks papers that engage with the commerce and commercialization of the “Atlantic World” (itself a rhetorical hypostasis that plays a role in commercialization). Papers that explore how writers of the long eighteenth century envisioned, virtualized, imagined, or otherwise fashioned the space of the Atlantic and/or the commercial dimensions of that space are welcome. Abstracts of no more than 500 words must be submitted by 15 May 2012.

The 2012 meeting will be at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut, from October 11-14. For more information visit:

http://www.neasecs.org/conference.html

Dwight Codr
University of Connecticut