bibliography and history of the book

Textualities of American Drama: What are the textual forms of American drama? Dramatic works produced during the nineteenth century (an age largely dominated by spectacular melodrama) and the early twentieth century (an era that turned imperfectly to dramatic realism) are often studied according to their production histories rather than their circulation as printed play texts. But the publication of dramatic texts was a significant subplot of the expanding publishing industry throughout the United States. How did the making and consumption of plays in print shape the literary status of American drama?

27th Annual Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature

12-13 April 2019

Call for Papers

We invite abstracts for 20-minute conference presentations on any aspect of Early British Literature from the beginnings through the 18th Century.  Papers on all aspects of teaching, interpretation, and research of Early British Literature are invited.  Undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty are encouraged to apply.

The 2019 Keynote Address will be "The Metamorphic Worlds of Early Modern Literature," by Dr. Seth Lerer, Distinguished Professor of Literature, The University of California at San Diego.

In celebration of the life and works of the eminent scholar Pierre Coustillas (1930-2018), we invite contributions for proposed panel(s) on Coustillas, George Gissing, and their writing to the Annual Literary London Society Conference. This meeting will be held on 11-12 July 2019 at the Institute of English Studies in the University of London. Coustillas has had a profound influence on Gissing and nineteenth-century studies. From 1969 to April 2013, he edited The Gissing Newsletter and subsequently The Gissing Journal, the organ for Gissing studies. In 1997, Paul F. Mattheisen, Arthur C. Young, and Coustillas completed their landmark project: The Collected Letters of George Gissing.

This special issue explores the intricate relationship between archives and popular culture: how archives shape our understanding of “popular culture,” and how diverse forms of popular culture shape conceptions and contents of archives. Conventional conceptualizations of the archive as the repository of authoritative historical documents, assembled and maintained by institutions of the state, have increasingly been challenged. Formation of repositories, in public and private, of materials created by individuals who lack epistemic authority has been of interest not only to historians looking for traces of their lives.

In honor of the 200th anniversary of The Sketch Book (1819-1820), which includes the legendary stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the Washington Irving Society invites proposals for any topic related to The Sketch Book for the American Literature Association Conference in Boston, May 23-26, 2019. Please send an abstract of 250 words plus a brief bio to Dr. Sean Keck at skeck@radford.edu by January 15, 2019.