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"Romanticism and Peace": Special Session at NASSR 2013, ("Romantic Movements," Boston, August 8-11, 2013)

“Peace is not an absence of war,” wrote Spinoza, “it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.” This panel will proceed from Spinoza’s notion that peace is an active principle rather than a void characterizing periods between military conflict. The years
between the storming of the Bastille and the defeat of Napoleon have traditionally been understood as a time of continual war, an era of violent bloodshed over issues of land, class, nation, and resources. But to view the Romantic era exclusively through the lens of war runs the risk of overlooking the significant reaching after peace that also characterizes the period, a process reflected in the unprecedented number of treaties produced at this time, from the Peace of Paris in 1783 to the London Straits Convention of 1841. Attempts to theorize, to imagine, and most importantly, to bring about peace, were significant if often overlooked forces in Romantic- era culture, a culture preoccupied not only with conflict but with conflict resolution.

Please send a 250-word abstract to John Bugg (bugg@fordham.edu) by January 15, 2013.