Brown and the Bayou: Politics, Writing, and Borderlands in the=20
Postrevolutionary Circumatlantic World

The Charles Brockden Brown Society invites submissions for its fifth =
biennial international conference to be held at the Chateau LeMoyne =
Hotel in
New Orleans's famed French Quarter, November 2-4, 2006. Conference =
organizers' determination of the conference site was in place prior to =
the
devastation suffered as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Their decision =
to persist in these plans reflects not only a desire to extend =
commercial
support, no matter how small, for the region's rebuilding efforts and =
"rebirth," but also their recognition of the crucial significance of =
New Orleans in early
America given the Mississippi estuary's strategic importance to European =
colonizers and later the emergent U. S. Republic. Then and now, New =
Orleans
provides hard evidence of the uneven work of racial, political, and =
economic justice in the United States.=20

Then, in 1803, Brown published several important political =
writings--including the propagandist tract An Address to the Government =
of the United
States, on the Cession of Louisiana to the French. Such writings prompt =
intervention in favor of the new nation's acquisition of Louisiana while =

scrutinizing the traumatic effects such an acquisition might have on =
already tenuous social and cultural conditions in the New Republic. =
According to An Address, Louisiana is a volatile place "in the bowels of =
the States," a nodal site wherein borders demarcating putatively clear =
ethnic, racial, and regional and national identities, as well as =
political and commercial codes of conduct, might become complicated, =
compromised, and difficult to discern. Today, paralleling this astute =
(if anxious) recognition by the
Philadelphia-based magazine editor, lawyer, and erstwhile novelist, =
scholars of early America have begun to comprehend the full extent of =
the
significance of Brown's writings, including the celebrated fiction as =
well as his neglected nonfiction writings, to urgent contemporary =
debates, not
least among these whether or not to expand Jefferson's "empire for =
liberty" into the Louisiana territories. Accordingly, Brown's works have =
proven
fertile territory for new interpretations of the "circumatlantic" world =
from and about which Brown wrote. =20

The Society thus welcomes individual or panel proposals on Brown and his =
contemporaries (particularly those with whom he engaged as a reader, =
writer,
or critical thinker) that further our understanding of how specific =
boundaries get constructed--and crossed--within and across texts. =
Topics might include but are by no means limited to:=20

--geographies of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality
--histories, historiography, and the historical imagination=20
--literary and artistic imaginings of the U. S., Haitian and/or French =
Revolutions
--politics, party, factionalism, and conspiracy=20
--cartographies of expansionism (and contraction) of "region," "nation" =
and/or "empire"
--civil government, religious authority, culture, and democracy
--foreign commerce, economy, and border crossing
--representations of disaster and refugee experience (from the Haitian =
Revolution, for example, or in texts authored by British Jacobins)=20

Proposals from various disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives =
are welcome. Send 500-word abstracts by June 1, 2006, to Bryan =
Waterman=20
(bryan.waterman_at_nyu.edu) and Fritz Fleischmann (fleischmann_at_babson.edu). =
  For further information about the society, see
<http://www3.babson.edu/faculty/sites/cbb>

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Received on Sat May 20 2006 - 10:08:51 EDT