Panel: The American Renaissance and New York City.

CUNY Graduate Student Conference: The City in Literature, March 24, 2006.

As the mugs sold at the New York Historical Society Gift Shop exclaim,
Emerson, in The Conduct of Life, famously pronounced, "New York is a sucked orange."

In antebellum North America, Boston was seen as the center of literature and
culture; New York conversely, was understood as the scion of the baser
necessities of trade. A great many of the canononical authors of the period saw
themselves as New England writers: For example, Frederick Douglass who came from
the south, and Harriet Beecher Stowe who lived much of her adult life in Ohio.
Yet significant authors of this period-- notably Walt Whitman and Herman
Melville-- declared New York City unabashedly their home.

Papers for this panel should deal with representations of New York by authors
of the American Renaissance period, be they cannononical or less well-known,
inhabitants of New York, visitors, or imaginers of this city.

Topics could possibly be, but are not limited to:

the urban vs. the rural/pastoral
commerce and literature and/or art
the abolition movement in New York (or resistance to it)
Lincoln at Cooper Union
Horace Greeley and the Tribune
Margaret Fuller, Horace Greeley, and the Tribune
immigration
women's rights
temperance and other reform
the transplanted author in the city
the city writer in his/her element
the draft riots
religion
oratory

Please send abstracts of 250-500 words to Audrey Raden via email attachment
to OrpheusRaden_at_aol.com or through regular mail to 31-13 34th Street #3A;
Astoria, NY 11106 by February 1, 2006. Make sure your abstract has printed on it
your full name and contact information. Include SASE with mailed submission if
you want your abstract returned.

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Received on Mon Dec 05 2005 - 13:14:25 EST