CALL FOR PAPERS

Charles W. Chesnutt Association

American Literature Association

33rd Annual ConferenceMay 26-29, 2022The Palmer House Hilton
17 East Monroe
Chicago, IL  60603

The Charles W. Chesnutt Association welcomes abstracts (of no more than 300 words) for presentation at two sessions on the work of Chesnutt at the 2022 ALA conference in Chicago.

Session One: Chesnutt’s Influences

There has for decades been very productive work done on the influences that helped shape Chesnutt’s work—literary, historical, and cultural contexts that informed Chesnutt’s writing.  While we are open to further examples of this kind of scholarship, we are especially interested in what is less often explored: Chesnutt’s influence as a writer and thinker on writers, both his contemporaries and future authors.  How did other writers think about and respond to the work and career of Chesnutt?  Where can we see Chesnutt’s legacy showing up after the height of his popularity at the turn-of-the-twentieth century? 

Session Two: Teaching Chesnutt

We invite submissions on all topics related to the teaching of Chesnutt’s work.  We are especially interested in approaches that open up new ways to approach his work and non-traditional pedagogies, such as project-based learning, team teaching, civic/community partnerships, digital humanities projects, archival work, etc.  This panel is intended to be generative for everyone, so rather than looking very idiosyncratic or personal teaching strategies, we seek pedagogical approaches to Chesnutt’s work that will help us all think about how to teach this challenging and exciting author.

Please email an abstract (of no more than 300 words) and a brief (1-2 page) CV by January 15, 2022, to program chair, Bill Hardwig, whardwig@utk.edu.