CFP: Abolition and British Romanticism (6/1/07; ICR, 10/18/07-10/21/07)

full name / name of organization: 
Lamar Adam Mekler
contact email: 

International Confererence on Romanticism 2007
Baltimore, Maryland
October 18-21, 2007
Panel: Abolition and British Romanticism
CONTACT: lmekler_at_jewel.morgan.edu

The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain offers
an important opportunity for the consideration of the figure of the African
and the slave as objects and subjects of discourse during the early Romantic
period. The decades-long parliamentary campaign to achieve the end of the
slave trade became intricately associated with the country's responses to
the French Revolution and to other reform movements, and therefore abolition
formed an essential component of Romantic writers' concern with the
relationships among British citizens and those between the English and the
rest of the world. Blake's concept of "mind-forg'd manacles" serves as just
one example of the use of images of imprisonment and enslavement in the
literature of the time, and the writings of prominent abolitionists, both
white and black, utilize themes and concepts prevalent in the poetry and
fiction of the period—including appeals to Nature and the Imagination—in
their works as well.

This panel will incorporate papers that discuss the subject from a variety
of viewpoints. Ideally, panelists will investigate literary treatments by
both white and black writers, including such authors as William Wordsworth,
Robert Southey, and Anna Barbauld, as well as figures such as Phyllis
Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano. Later writers such as the Shelleys, Lord
Byron, and Mary Prince may also be included if participants wish to
investigate the impact of the continuing struggle for the abolition of
slavery itself in the years following 1807.

Please submit 250-word abstracts via e-mail attachment to L. Adam Mekler,
lmekler_at_jewel.morgan.edu, by June 1.

         ==========================================================
              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 Sun Apr 22 2007 - 16:14:40 EDT