. The event will take place over Veterans' Day weekend and is designed to allow delegates, their families, and friends the opportunity to explore the many historical sites of the area. On Thursday, November 9, the Music Department at Salem State College will host an evening of regional music from the period followed by a port and cheese reception. This event will be free to all registered delegates and their guests. Panels will begin on Friday November 10, and there will be a plenary panel during the day in which various distinguished academics in their field join a discussion of why the eighteenth century matters today. Among the disciplines represented by this panel will be economics, mathematics, life sciences, history,and literature. A reception at the House ofthe Seven Gables will mark the end of Fridays activities. The keynote speaker for the conference banquet on Saturday November 11 will be E. O. Wilson, the Mellon Professor of the Sciences and Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus. He is the author of numerous books including, most recently, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.The conference will conclude toward noon on Sunday. Both the Hawthorne hotel and the Waterfront Hotel have reserved blocks of rooms for the conference, and everyone isurged to make their reservations in a timely fashion as both hotels, which are less than a five-minute walk apart, are likely to sell out. When booking, ask for the NEASECS rate. The conference organizers have received panel proposals and will issue a general call for papers soon.
NEASECS 2005: Fredericton, New Brunswick, September 30-October 2, 2005
Beverly Lemire, the chair of the 2005 Annual Meeting, "The Eighteenth Century Everyday: Remembrance and Representation," has submitted the following account of the conference.
The annual NEASECS conference was held in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, at the Delta Hotel 30 September - 2 October 2005. The conference was blessed with glorious autumn weather, giving added brilliance to the St John River that flowed beside the hotel. But conference participants had little time to enjoy the outdoors during the first two days of the conference, as the busy program swept up participants from 9:00 Friday morning, 30 September.
Our aim, as conference organizers, was to assess quotidian practices and their representations in eighteenth century societies from Europe to North America. Interdisciplinarity was at the core of this endeavour. Particular efforts were made to ensure that disciplinary perspectives at this conference would extend beyond the literary (always well represented), to include visual culture, history and philosophy; religious studies and musicology were also among disciplinary perspectives represented during the two and a half day event. Organizers sought to encourage conversations among scholars engaged in common pursuits and to enable linkages between disciplines, and to this end many panels showed an interdisciplinary flavour.
The content of the conference met all our expectations, in term of the themes addressed, the overall quality of the presentations and the interdisciplinary scope of the panels. The papers presented and panels organized were of a very high quality, with a number of exceptionally creative and innovative presentations. Following the first flight of papers there was a buzz, a positive energy among the participants, with conversations begun that would continue throughout the weekend among a widening circle of participants.
Graduate students comprised about fourteen percent of the more than one hundred and ten presenters and over forty panels. They represented an important group of developing scholars, a good number with exceptionally creative projects represented at this conference. In most cases, graduate students were inte-grated into panels with senior and midrange scholars, and the scheduling of panels was not determined by seniority. The Edna Steeves Prize for the best graduate presentation at the 2005 NEASECS Conference was awarded to Emily Dolan of Cornell University for her paper "Paint Splatters and Ocular Harpsichords: the Metaphor of Color in Musical Discourse." It was a tight competition, given the quality of graduate submissions.
There was a wide-ranging participation at this conference by any criteria. A senior literary scholar from New Zealand was among the presenters, as too a more junior academic from the National University of Kaohsiung. Not surprisingly, the northeastern universities were well represented from institutions such as Boston College, Salem State College and Columbia University, as well as Dalhousie University, Colby College and Mount Saint Vincent University. But participants also came from across the United States and Canada, both graduate students and faculty, while European academia was also represented
Among the highlights of the conference was the keynote address on Friday afternoon by Professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich of Harvard University, who gave a richly illustrated lecture, entitled "Fictions in the Kitchen," before an audience of more than 200 people - conference participants, students from local universities and members of the public. In this presentation Ulrich explored the ways colonial America was interpreted in the late nineteenth century at the time of the opening of the first colonial museums. Her skills as a material culture specialist and colonial historian were much in evidence.
The living museum, King's Landing Historical Settlement, was the site of the conference banquet on Saturday evening, with buses timed to allow visitors to get a flavour of this settlement on the St John River. As well, on Sunday afternoon, Professor Lianne McTavish led a well attended tour of the eighteenth-century holdings at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, a topical show as the ownership of many of these extra-ordinary paintings is currently in dispute between the Gallery and the heirs of the late Lord Beaverbrook. Participants found the paintings very engaging, with themes addressed in the confer-ence in evidence in many of the painting examined on the tour.
Both the local and long-distance organizers were pleased with the outcomes of the conference. As well as substantial intellectual content and stimulation, participants were also introduced to the Maritimes, a region of Canada rich in history.
International Society For EighteenthCentury Studies (ISECS) Call for Papers
The International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS) invites applications from scholars in all fields of eighteenth-century studies within the context of a one-week International Seminar for Young Eighteenth-Century Scholars.
Formerly the East-West Seminar, this event brings together each year young researchers from a number of countries. In 2006, the meeting will take place in two cities, Québec City and Trois-Rivières, and will be co-organized by the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (SCEDHS / CSECS), the Cercle interuniversitaire d'étude sur la République des Lettres (CIERL) and the Canada Research Chair in Rhetoric.
The Seminar will be held from Monday September 11th to Friday September 15th 2006 in Québec (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) and Trois-Rivières (Thursday and Friday), under the direction of Marc André Bernier (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières) and Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (Universität Saarbrücken).
This year, the theme of the seminar will be: Enlightenment and History; Reinventing Antiquity, imagining new worlds, rethinking revolutions; Framing the issues.
A detailed description of this theme is available on line at this address: http://www.uqtr.ca/dfra/seminaire2006
The seminar is limited to 15 participants. The proposals (approx. 2 pages long, single-spaced)should be based on an original research project (e.g. a Doctoral Dissertation) that deals with one of the aspects mentioned above. Since this is a seminar rather than a conference, each participant will be given approximately one hour to present the texts and questions that will then form the basis of a group discussion.
Preference will be given to scholars who are at the beginning of their academic careers (PhD or equivalent after 2000). The official languages are French and English.
Applications should include the following information:
- A short curriculum vitae with date of PhD (or equivalent)
- A list of principal publications and scholarly presentations
- A brief description of the proposed paper (approx. 2 pages long, singlespaced)
- One letter of recommendation
Lodging and travel assistance will be provided by the organizers who reserve airplane tickets and rooms. Lunch will be served on site; the cost of evening meals is covered by participants.
As is the case each year, the proceedings of the Seminar will be published by Champion (Paris) in the series "Lumières internationales."
The deadline for abstracts is 15 March 2006. All applications should be sent by mail, the postmark attesti ng to the date of mailing, to one of the following addresses:
M. Marc André BERNIER
Titulaire de la Chaire de recherche du Canada en rhétorique
Département de français
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières,
C.P. 500 Trois-Rivières (Québec)
Canada G9A 5H7
Téléphone : (819) 376-5011, poste 3868; télécopieur : (819) 376-5173
marc-andre.bernier@uqtr.ca
Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen LÜSEBRINK
Universität Saarbrücken
FR. 4.2. Lehrstuhl für Romanische
Kulturwissenschaft u. Interkulturelle Kommunikation Im Stadtwald
D-66123 Saarbrücken
luesebrink@mx.uni-saarland.de
New Submission Format: 2005-06 ASECS Graduate Student Conference Paper Competition
The ASECS Executive Board offers an award of $200 for the best paper presented by a graduate student at the Montreal ASECS Annual Meeting (regional meetings do not qualify).
Papers submitted for this award may be no longer than 2500 words plus notes. Papers exceeding this length will be disqualified. Entries must be sent via e-mail to the Business Office (asecs@wfu.edu) no later than Monday, April 3, 2006.
The papers are judged by a committee consisting of the First Vice-President, Second Vice-President and one member-at-large of the ASECS Executive Board.
Icons And Iconoclasts: The Long Seventeenth Century, 1603-1714 A Conference At The Centre For Early Modern Studies, University Of Aberdeen, 20 To 22 July 2006
The Aberdeen Centre for Early Modern Studies is holding an international conference on the long seventeenth century, from 20 to 22 July, 2006. The plenary lectures are Professor Catherine Belsey (Cardiff): 'Shakespeare as Icon'; Professor Peter Burke (Cambridge): 'Was the 17th Century an Age of Crisis?'; Professor Annabel Patterson (Yale) 'Swansong: The Human Voice of History'
We invite proposals for 20 minute papers on any aspect of British, American, or Continental literature, philosophy, culture, and history during the long Seventeenth Century. They should be sent by email to the conference organizer, Professor Derek Hughes (1603@abdn.ac.uk), by 28 February, 2006. Every effort will be made to accommodate early applicants who require a decision before that date.
The University of Aberdeen, founded in 1495, is one of the most ancient British universities, and is the most northerly of the older ones. Aberdeen is situated on the North Sea coast, and a convenient point of departure for the Highlands and the Orkneys. The airport (with direct flights to London) is only five miles from the university, and there are direct trains to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other Scottish cities. Its Centre for Early Modern Studies (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cems) brings together distinguished early modern scholars in all the major disciplines, and fosters collaborative research in the fields of history, philosophy, literature, and the other arts. It is proud to welcome as its newest members Professor Janet Todd, Professor Robert Frost, and Dr Karin Friedrich.
News of Members
Barbara Benedict (English, Trinity College) has published "Ghostly Foot-Prints: The Haunts of Meaning in Eighteenth-Century London." Literary London, special issue of Augustan Studies, ed. Sandro Jung vol. 3, (Summer, 2005); "Identity and Quest: Experimental Experience and the Eighteenth-Century Novel." The Eighteenth-Century Novel, 4 (Fall, 2004); and "Austen and Uncertainty." Re-Drawing Austen: Picturesque Travels in Austenland, eds. Beatrice Battaglia and Diego Saglia (Napoli: Linguore Editore, 2004).
Gita May (Columbia University)published Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun: The Odyssey of an Artist in an Age of Revolution (Yale University Press, 2005), illustrated.
John L. Mahoney (English, Emeritus, Boston College) has delivered a paper entitled "Poetry, Landscape, Ultimacy: Pope and Wordsworth" at the Thirteenth Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Human Ideas on Ultimate Reality and Meaning at the University of Toronto, August 3-6, 2005. Professor Mahoney has recorded a new Boston College compact disk, "Poetry of Faith," with poems by Donne, Herbert, Johnson, Wordsworth, Keats, and others.
Ruth Perry (English, MIT) has published Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinship in English literature and Culture, 1748-1818 (Cambridge University Press, 2004.
2004-2005 Treasurer's Report
The following report was submitted by Charlotte Craig, Secretary-Treasurer of the Society, and was accepted at the Business Meeting in Fredericton, New Brunswick, October 1, 2005.
NORTHEAST AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES
ANNUAL FINANCIAL STATEMENT
(September 1, 2005)
