CFP: Revealing The Reader. A Symposium

Recent developments in the history of the book demonstrate that an interest in the material history of print culture inevitably leads us to the question of readers. How well can we understand the past, present and future of print culture without examining the uses to which it is put by its audience? This question serves not only to remind us of the primacy of the economic relationship between readers, writers and publishers, but draws our attention to the variety of cultural, social, political, and interpersonal roles that reading has played and continues to play.

The "Revealing The Reader" symposium at Monash's Centre for the Book, aims to bring together scholars with a common interest in contemporary and historical reading practices with the aim of showcasing current research in this rapidly expanding field, and providing a forum for discussion and debate on the state of reading research.

Paper proposals may address topics such as:

• Case studies of reading practices and reading communities
• The relationships between reading communities, publishers, authors etc.
• The relationships between reading communities and genre
• Methodologies for researching readers and their practices
• The material trace of reading
• Historical and contemporary evidence of reading
• Locations of reading
• The relationship between individual readers and reading communities
• Histories of reading
• Technologies of reading
• The role of existing and emerging technologies in revealing readers

This list is not exhaustive, and the conveners welcome submissions from researchers whose work investigates reading practices and readers from the perspective of the sociology of literature, book history, literary studies, mixed methods research, reader response theory, history, cultural studies, and the study of material culture. Submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers are particularly welcome.

Keynote speakers:
• Danielle Fuller (University of Birmingham): a chief investigator in the Beyond The Book research project into mass reading events.
• Susan Martin (La Trobe University): co-author of Sensational Melbourne: Reading, Sensation Fiction and Lady Audley's Secret in the Victorian Metropolis.
• Julie Rak (University of Alberta): author of a forthcoming study on the memoir boom in North America.

Please email 300-word proposals for 20 minute papers, and 50-word presenter bio-notes by Friday 27 April 2012 to conference organisers Anna Poletti and Patrick Spedding. Pre-constituted panel proposals welcome. Please include the conference title in the subject heading of your email.

The symposium will follow a one day masterclass, led by Danielle Fuller, on Thursday 28 June at the Wheeler Centre Melbourne as part of the "Readers and Reception" Masterclass series, presented by the National Centre for the Australian Studies, School of Journalism, Australian and Indigenous Studies. Information on the Masterclass series is available from Jinna.Tay@monash.edu or Louise.Poland@monash.edu.

Print Culture for Undergraduates

Trysh Travis is circulating a CFP for a SHARP Affiliate Panel at the MLA Conference (Los Angeles, California, 6–9 January 2011)

This panel that will examine the place of print culture in the undergraduate literature curriculum (in English and/or language departments) in an era in which students may be more accustomed to reading on screens than on paper and administrators are clamoring for a "back to basics" approach to literary study.

Faced with these conditions, how do scholars of print culture justify-and implement-its study across the various levels of a major?

How can we do book history as undergraduate class sizes expand indefinitely?

How can we leverage undergraduates' infatuation with new media (text-messaging, Facebook, Twitter) on behalf of the study of print culture?

These and other questions relating to the uses of print culture within undergraduate pedagogy may be addressed through case studies, theoretical musings, programmatic overviews, and the like.

[A fascinating topic. Unfortunately the panel is only open to members of MLA (by 7 April) and of SHARP (by 1 July). If you are one of the happy few who fit this criteria …]

Proposals and short CV by 15 March to:

Trysh Travis
Center for Women's Studies & Gender Research
Box 117352
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7352

Associational Reading in the 18C

Eleanor Shevlin is seeking proposals for a panel to be held at the annual meeting of the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) 18-21 March 2010, in Albuquerque, NM

"'Associational Reading': Libraries, Reading Societies, and Book Clubs in the Eighteenth Century”

“Associational Reading” is a term used to describe formal library activity defined by the association and sociability of the participants. It is used particularly to distinguish subscription and membership libraries, book clubs, reading societies and specialist societies that had libraries (medical societies, law societies, agricultural societies etc) from other book-lending institutions, especially the commercial circulating libraries (which were usually owned and managed by a single profit-oriented entrepreneur) and charitable foundations. Although profit-driven, commercial circulating libraries sometimes adopted associational language to promote their ventures many private libraries facilitating an associational (or at least sociable) form of reading, lending books to friends, neighbors and relatives in their area. This panel invites paper that explore various forms of “associational reading” in the long eighteenth century. Papers may focus on a particular library, reading club, society or reading group, or may focus on another aspect of as this phenomenon. Panelists may also wish to consider the ways that associational reading intersects with issues of race, class, gender, genre, or commerce.

Please send one page abstracts to Eleanor Shevlin, eshevlin@wcupa.edu (or 2006 Columbia, NW, Apt. 42, Washington, DC 20009)

All panelists who are not members of the Bibliographical Society of America are kindly requested to join before the ASECS meeting in March.

The Eighteenth Century on Film: CFP

John H. O'Neill is accepting proposals—up to 15 September 2009—for the special session on "The Eighteenth Century on Film" at the 2010 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque. The session is sponsored by NEASECS, but participation is open to all members of ASECS.

John has said that he welcomes and encourages proposals for papers on any aspect of this topic, including film adaptations of eighteenth century narratives (e.g., Castaway, Tom Jones), films set in the period (e.g., Stage Beauty, The Libertine, Amazing Grace), and film explorations of eighteenth-century history (e.g., Peter Watkins' Culloden).

Please send proposals to John H. O'Neill, Dept. of English, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York 13323; Tel: 315/859-4463; Fax: 315/859-4390; E-Mail: joneill@hamilton.edu