cfp.english.upenn.edu

For the 2013 Interdisciplinary Studies in the 19th-Century Conference and its stated theme of “Leisure! Fun! Enjoyment!,” I am proposing a Hawthorne panel that explores the way that pleasure, enjoyment, entertainment and leisure function in his works. The conference seeks original scholarship that considers “how enjoyment is experienced, what function it serves, how it can be legislated or monitored, if it can be exhausted, repeated, repelled, and whether individual enjoyment differs from enjoyment shared.” Art objects, masques, and public performances all arouse pleasure in Hawthorne’s audiences in his writings. Recent scholarship on Hawthorne has explored this topic in various writings, as Richard Millington argues that “leisure [functions] as the vehicle to a wider, more sustaining awareness” in Hawthorne’s literary sketches, for example (113). Meanwhile, Evan Carton analyzes the four tales within “Legends of the Province-House” as “creative performances or imaginative productions” that characterize the American Revolution (332). This panel will seek to interrogate such creative performances, the role of audience in that performance, and the function of pleasure in Hawthorne’s work. Topics for the proposed Hawthorne panel might include, but are not limited to:

∗ the masque, ball, dance, or public performance
∗ middle-class society and entertainment
∗ the role of the spectacle as enjoyment
∗ animals and pets as entertainment
∗ food, drinking, and consumption
∗ gardens and nature as pleasure grounds
∗ historical approaches to Hawthorne and pleasure or leisure in the 19th-century
∗ child figures, children’s pleasure in short fiction and novels; or pleasure and enjoyment in Hawthorne’s children’s literature
∗ art, beauty, and aestheticism and pleasure
∗ the role of affect and emotion in terms of enjoyment

Please send a 250-word abstract by 1 September 2012 to:
Michael Martin
University of Charleston
Email: michaelmartin@ucwv.edu
For more information on the conference, see the following INCS web site:
http://nd.edu/~incshp/incs2013.htm
The conference will be held at the University of Virginia from 14-17 March 2013.