CFP for NEASECS 2005: Scots and Africans in the Transatlantic 18c

      Current studies of the history of race, most importantly Roxann
Wheeler's The Complexion of Race, have stressed the differentness of such
models of racial identity to the nineteenth century's turn to
phenotype. This panel seeks to address, in one focused and particularized
venue, the question of whether the non-biologism of Scottish Enlightenment
thought–its theoretical assumption that "anachronistic" societies can and
will catch up–should be understood as "less racist" than the nineteenth
century's "scienticization" of race. Paradoxically, nature and nurture are
blurred in eighteenth-century ascriptions to "imitation" of both successful
maturation to full humanity and permanent subhumanity. Animals are
described as imitative by Scottish Enlightenment writers; so are blacks and
Indians; so are children. Papers sought about the ways that imitation was
figured as an engine of the progress of individuals and of nations: by
Scots, about Scots, by Africans, and/or about Africans. Email proposals to
jjthorn_at_colby.edu by April 13, 2005.

Jennifer Thorn
Dept. of English
Colby College
5260 Mayflower Hill Drive
Waterville ME 04901
(207) 872-3975
fax (207) 872-3806

         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================
Received on Wed Apr 06 2005 - 20:10:49 EDT