CFP: Dynamism and Change in the Long Eighteenth Century (grad) (1/31/05; 4/28/05)

Call For Papers:

“Britain’s Long Eighteenth Century: Dynamism and Change 1660-1800”

A Graduate Student Conference at the University of Chicago, April 28, 2005

Plenary Speakers: Michael McKeon, Department of English,
Rutgers University
                        Margaret Hunt, Department of History and Gender Studies,
                        Amherst University

While, a generation ago, one scholar characterized the eighteenth century in
Britain as a time of “adamantine strength and profound inertia,” the period
between 1660 and 1800 is now widely regarded as a significant era in
Britain’s development. Eighteenth-century Britain witnessed important shifts
in its social, economic, political, and cultural status, from the
development of the “fiscal-military state” and the rise of consumer culture,
to the emergence of the novel and the refinement of portrait painting. Such
developments were attended by an unprecedented increase in colonial
possession and national wealth; the accompanying redefinition of British
culture was further marked by the American and French Revolutions in the
latter half of the century.

This graduate student conference invites proposals for papers addressing the
topic of change in eighteenth-century Britain. We welcome proposals that
examine British self-definition as an product of interplay between social
and cultural forces and economic and political ones. What drove the
construction of social identities, such as those having to do with religion,
race, class, or gender? How did these social identities play out in national
contexts?

We also pose questions of periodization and approach: what kinds of
questions and categories are useful in investigating eighteenth-century
Britain across disciplinary boundaries? How do we reconcile ideology and
experience, theory and practice? How might we characterize ruptures or
continuities with the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries?

We are concerned with conceiving of “Britain” in broad terms, and welcome
proposals that focus on England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, or any of
Britain’s colonial territories. We also invite proposals from any discipline
or disciplines.

Please send a titled, one-page proposal, along with personal contact
information and university/department affiliation to the conference
organizers by JANUARY 31, 2005.
Electronic submissions preferred.

Heather Welland Noelle Gallagher
University of Chicago University of Chicago
Department of History Department of English
hwelland_at_uchicago.edu noelle_at_uchicago.edu

         ==========================================================
              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 Wed Dec 01 2004 - 12:41:04 EST