Dancing in Restoration and 18th-Century England--due 9/15/15

full name / name of organization: 
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Meeting (Mar. 21-April 2)

Dance was an important part of Restoration and eighteenth-century society and of Restoration and eighteenth-century theatre, and it figures prominently in a number of eighteenth-century novels as well. Yet it is a field of study that has been largely overlooked in Restoration and eighteenth-century scholarship (particularly that on England). This panel invites papers on all aspects of eighteenth-century dance culture, from attempts to reconstruct or analyze dances to explorations of eighteenth-century dance textbooks to inquiries into how dance informed the other arts like theater, opera, and the novel. What might the methodologies of dance scholarship contribute to our understanding of eighteenth-century books, performances, or cultures? And is it possible to study such an embodied medium (famously difficult to notate) of a culture that survives largely through its books? (Note: papers that focus on aspects of dance outside of the already substantial work on the ballet in France are especially encouraged!)