BRITISH ASSOCIATION  OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICANISTS PANELS AT THE BAAS/EAAS JOINT CONFERENCE, LONDON 2018

The British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists invites submissions to two panels to be submitted to the joint British Association for American Studies/European Association for American Studies Conference, taking place in London, April 4-7 2018.

More information on BrANCA and its activities can be found here: http://www.branca.org.uk/

1. OPEN PANEL ON 19th CENTURY AMERICANIST TOPICS

Each year BrANCA hosts a special panel at BAAS showcasing progressive, interdisciplinary work on the United States in the long nineteenth century. This year BrANCA invites paper proposals on any relevant topic to be included within a sponsored panel at the BAAS/EAAS Conference in London, April 4-7 2018.

We invite proposals for papers from all researchers working in the field. We are particularly interested in global, hemispheric and transatlantic approaches to key themes in nineteenth century literary studies, and papers that propose new ways of conceiving the field, but are open to all submissions. Researchers at all stages are welcomed, and papers from postgraduates are particularly encouraged.

250 word proposals for 20-minute presentations, with a provisional title and brief CV, and related queries should be sent to the BrANCa Conferences Coordinator, Dr. Matthew Pethers at matthew.pethers@nottingham.ac.uk by Friday 1st September 2017.

2. NATURE AND/OR/AS/VERSUS CULTURE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA

In keeping with this year’s BAAS/EAAS conference theme of “Environment, Place, and Protest,” BrANCA also welcomes submissions on the more specific topic of the relationship between nature and culture in nineteenth-century America.

The recent emergence of the concept of the Anthropocene, and its increasing significance across a range of academic fields, has particular relevance for scholars of nineteenth century America. Historians such as Dipesh Chakrabaty, philosophers such as Timothy Morton, and cultural critics such as Mark McGurl all agree not only that the Anthropocene throws up vital new questions about markers of temporal progress, the challenges of human agency and collective responsibility, and the separation between the natural world and social constructs, but that the new geological age we find ourselves in has its roots in nineteenth-century processes of industrialization and commercialization. Scholars of nineteenth-century American literature and culture, from Leo Marx to Lawrence Buell, have of course long examined and critiqued the role of a simultaneously idealized and threatened natural world in the forming of the US’s political and artistic consciousness. But current debates about the complex and conflicted relationship between nature and culture promise to throw new light on our familiar understandings of topics such as the expansion of the frontier, the spread of Romanticism, and the impact of technological innovations, among others.

We invite proposals on these topics, and any others related to the interrelationship between nature and culture in nineteenth century America. Researchers at all stages are welcomed, and papers from postgraduates are particularly encouraged.

250 word proposals for 20-minute presentations, with a provisional title and brief CV, and related queries should be sent to the BrANCa Conferences Coordinator, Dr. Matthew Pethers at matthew.pethers@nottingham.ac.uk by Friday 1st September 2017.