This panel will explore the presence of eighteenth-century human rights discourse in antebellum American culture. We will have two goals: first, to seek persistences of eighteenth-century human rights theory even as it was eclipsed by discourses of Nationalism, European Imperialism, Anglo-Saxonism, scientific racism, economic determinism, and so on in the nineteenth century; second, to articulate the relationship of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism to the forces that would stifle it during the period between the American/French Revolutions and the post-WWII resurgence of human rights.

Visit this link to see full panel proposal and to submit abstract directly to NeMLA conference website:  https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/s/16267