PANEL 1: Roundtable call: Johnson at the Crossroads: Present and Future Prospects in Scholarship, Teaching, and the Wider World – A Conversation
Organizer: Greg Clingham (Bucknell Univ. & Penn State Univ.)
This Round Table conversation will bring together half a dozen Johnson scholars to talk about the present state and the future possibilities for writing, teaching, and talking about Johnson’s life, writing, and historical moment. A brief “thought” (no more than one double spaced page) from each participant will be circulated to all (including all attending) one week before the conference. In the session, each participant will have 5 minutes to elaborate on their prior statement, after which all will be invited to participate in conversation about the issues raised. The organizer will do his best to facilitate and mediate. Those interested in participating are asked to send Greg (at clingham@bucknell.edu) a sentence or two about the topic(s) they would wish to concentrate on, as conversation starters. (NB. We will seek the permission of participants to make an audio recording of the session.
PANEL 2: Dialects and Dissidence in the Age of Revolutions
A Memorial Panel to Daniel DeWispelare
Organizer and Moderator: Victoria Barnett-Woods (Washington College)Vbarnettwoods2@washcoll.edu
In commemoration of the original work contributed by Daniel DeWispelare, this panel
seeks papers which explore the multilingual and multicultural acts of resistance to a
monolingual imperial force. As French, Spanish, and English forces sought to
standardize the “mother tongue” in their colonies, the long eighteenth century provides
ample opportunity to explore moments in which resistance is configured in the linguistic.
Examples include the use of Scots Gaelic during the rise of the Jacobite Rebellion, the
linguistic syncretism of Haitian Creole during the Revolution, the multilingualism of the
Seven Years’ War. Coinciding with the theme of “Conflict and Transition,” this panel
seeks papers that speak to the immediate involvement of multilingualism as resistance
to the hegemony of imperial linguistic force.
This panel will also consider papers which speak to the revolutionary power of
language, particularly as connected to eighteenth-century riots. “Riot” can be interpreted
in several different contexts, from ships’ mutinies to sporadic incidences of violence, to
political dissidence and beyond. Dewispelare writes that “‘riot’ is a richly polyvalent term
with complexly interlaced referents that cannot be brought together without extreme
care and attention. Neither homonym nor homophone, in the domain of the social and
the economic, we know well that ‘riot’ refers to ‘a violent disturbance of the peace by a
crowd,’ as the OED reports. In the domain of the aesthetic, however, the term “riot”
contrastingly names “a roaringly successful show, performer, etc.’ as well as ‘a person
[…] or thing which is extremely popular or makes a big impression.’” To commemorate
the multilingual and polyvalent acts of resistance to conformity and standardization
through the riot or the revolutionary, this panel will consider the power of language, of
naming, and of dissidence during the long eighteenth century. PLEASE SUBMIT PROPOSALS TO Victoria Barnett-Woods
PANEL 3: Bibliography, Book History, and Textual Studies
Organizer: Eleanor F. Shevlin
ECASECS runs at least one panel dealing with these three areas every conference and often features 2 or 3 sessions. Papers are sought that deal with any aspect of bibliography, book history, or textual studies in the long eighteenth century; papers that deal with conflicts or transitions are especially sought. Please send proposals to Eleanor Shevlin (eshevlin@wcupa.edu) by May 28, 2024.
PANEL 4: Recent Research and Criticism in Swift Studies
Organizer: David M. Palumbo, Emmanuel College (Boston, MA)
Continuing Don Mell’s legacy at EC/ASECS, this panel welcomes research and criticism on any aspect of Jonathan Swift’s life, his writings, or his circle of friends and their responses to him and his writings. Don’s intellectual generosity has inspired innovative reassessments of Swift’s works and their critical receptions. The openness of this call for papers attempts to recreate this spirit of innovation. This year’s conference theme—Conflicts and Transitions in the Global 18th Century—offers opportunities to think about how Swift’s satiric vision, journalism, and private correspondence engage power relationships politically, interpersonally, and globally. It also promotes reflection on Swift’s use of personal relationships to manage political conflicts with global implications. (Modern adaptations of Swift’s work would also be welcome!) These suggestions are not meant to limit the range of possible paper topics. Rather, they serve as an invitation to scholarly creativity.
Please send proposals (150 words) to the following e-mail address: palumbda2@emmanuel.edu. Panelists will have fifteen minutes to present a paper or offer an informal reflection on topics relevant to the panel proposal. After the presentations, panelists and members of the audience will have the opportunity to discuss issues raised during the session.
PANEL 5: Marriage Commerce in the Long Eighteenth Century
Organizer: Leah M. Thomas, PhD
Conflicts among parents, progeny, and lovers persisted during the long eighteenth century because of expectations that men and women marry for social status and monetary income, based on primogeniture law. In many circumstances, marriages were like business transactions in which women were objects of this commerce based on their family’s social rank and the dowry they could provide the daughter for marriage. Thus, women’s wealth through their families would then contribute to the wealth of their husband’s family and continue his family lineage. Because of these circumstances, especially for women, the marriage plot in novels and plays was disrupted in ways to highlight these conflicts, and transition toward the freedom to marry for love. Women’s early to mid-eighteenth-century novels such as those by Penelope Aubin, Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Lennox, and Unca Eliza Winkfield include exciting plots in which heroines fight violently or marry compromisingly to protect their “virtue,” while their heroes and heroines pursue “true love.” Novels and plays at the end of the eighteenth century continued to pursue this conflict evident in Jane Austen’s novels, The Woman of Colour: A Tale, and Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals. This panel seeks proposals that explore romance and marrying for love, conflicts concerning these ideas, and transitions from marriage as commerce to love in literary works of the long eighteenth century. This panel hopes to address these questions: Were these literary works reflections of society’s ideas about marriage? Did these literary works influence ideas about marriage? To what extent did literary works explore the implicit definition of women as property? Please send 150-250 word abstracts to Dr. Leah Thomas, associate professor, Virginia State University, at Lmthomas@vsu.edu.
Panel 6: “European Masculinities in the 18th -Century: Alliances and Alienations”
Organizer: Dr. Elena Deanda
Seeking one more panelist!
This panel seeks to interrogate different experiences of masculinity expressed in literary texts across the 18th-century European landscape to sketch the many types of gender expression that masculinities showed during the Enlightenment.
Chair, Katie Charles, English, Washington College
“Gendered Apologetics and Eighteenth-Century Libertines”
Dr. Karen Manna, French Studies, Washington College
“Between the Lascivious and the Pious, Censoring of Poetry in Imperial Spain”
Dr. Elena Deanda, Spanish, Washington College
“Masculinities Redefined: Imitations of Virgil’s Second Eclogue by Francisco J. Alegre and José
Iglesias de la Casa”
Dr. Mehl Penrose, Spanish and Portuguese, University of Maryland College Park
If interested, please send abstract to Dr. Deanda edeanda2@washcoll.edu
Panel 7: Conflicts and Transitions: Refugees and Refugeeism
Refugee was a new word to English speakers in the long eighteenth century. The revoking in 1685 of the Edict of Nantes provoked the translation from réfugié to refugee as French Huguenots began to stream into England, Ireland, and the American colonies. Seventy years later, Dr. Johnson defined refugee as “one who flees to shelter or protection.”
This panel aspires to delve into the subject of refugeeism across genres, countries, and continents. There are so many possible topics for papers, among them:
- how are refugees represented in art and literature?
- what do songs tell us about the refugee experience?
- what was the journey like for refugees?
- where were refugees welcomed and where were they rejected?
- how did race factor in refugee acceptance or denial?
- how do economic, legal, philosophical, and religious treatises discuss refugees and refugeeism?
Please send abstracts to: Linda Merians (linda.merians@gmail.com)
ECASECS 2024 CONFERENCE 