Romantics at the 2013 MLA Convention

If you’re headed to Boston for MLA this January, here is a schedule of the sessions of Romantic interest you’ll want to check out:

Thursday, January 3

“Theories of the Romantic Grotesque”
noon-1:15pm Beacon D, Sheraton
Presiding: Alexander Regier, Rice Univ.
“Blake’s Grotesque Body: The Dismembered Corpus of the Lambeth Books,” Tilottama Rajan, Univ. of Western Ontario
“Henry Fuseli’s Classical Grotesque,” Alexander Regier
“Grotesque Romantic Ecology,” Timothy Morton, Univ. of California, Davis

“Transatlantic Book History in the Eighteenth Century”
noon-1:15pm, Beacon E, Sheraton
Presiding: Sean D. Moore, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham
1. “Toward an Imperial Book History of the Early United States,” Edward J. Larkin, Univ. of Delaware, Newark
2. “To Encourage the Printing Business in This Kingdom: Robert Bell’s Irish Paine,” Molly Hardy, Saint Bonaventure Univ
3. “Black Printers and the History of the American Book,” Christen Mucher, Univ. of Pennsylvania

“British Romantic Expatriates”
3:30-4:45pm Back Bay C, Sheraton
Presiding: Toby Benis, Saint Louis Univ.
1. “From Wales to Western Pennsylvania: Robert Southey’s Madoc,” Juliet Shields, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
2. “Robert Merry’s Expatriation and the Pains of Memory,” Amy B. Garnai, Tel Aviv Univ.
3. “George Templeton Strong Interprets Beethoven through Byron,” John Clubbe, Univ. of Kentucky

“Slavery and the Culture of Taste”
7-8:15pm Back Bay D, Sheraton
Presiding: Gaurav G. Desai, Tulane Univ.
Speakers: Srinivas Aravamudan, Duke Univ.; Faith Lois Smith, Brandeis Univ.; Leonard Tennenhouse, Duke Univ.; Rafia Zafar, Washington Univ. in St. Louis
Responding: Simon E. Gikandi, Princeton Univ.
Session Description: This roundtable will bring together scholars of eighteenth-century British literature and scholars of transatlantic slavery to consider the arguments made by Simon Gikandi in Slavery and the Culture of Taste. The book argues that the violence and ugliness of slavery were integral to the formation of theories of taste, aesthetics, and beauty.

“The University of Romanticism”
7-8:15pm Fairfax A, Sheraton
Presiding: Celeste G. Langan, Univ. of California, Berkeley
1. “The Conflict of the Faculties; or, Who Invented Romantic Religion?” Colin Lovell Jager, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick
2. “Wordsworth Recalled,” Anahid Nersessian, Columbia Univ.
3. “England’s Ruins as Cultural Capital,” William Keach, Brown Univ.
Responding: Jon P. Klancher, Carnegie Mellon Univ.

 Friday, January 4

“Peterloo Revisited: New Forms of Political Dissent in the Aftermath of the 1819 Manchester Massacre”
8:30am-9:30am Beacon F, Sheraton
Presiding: Michael T. R. Demson, Sam Houston State Univ.
1. “The Clerical Magistrate,” John Gardner, Anglia Ruskin Univ., Cambridge
2. “‘Science Is the Antichrist’: Chemistry, Instruction, and Revolution in Richard Carlile’s The Republican,” Mary Fairclough, Univ. of Huddersfield
3. “Shelley’s Other Response to Peterloo: Violence and Nonviolence in ‘A Philosophical View of Reform,'” Matthew C. Borushko, Stonehill Coll.
4. “The Violence of Form in Shelley’s ‘Mask of Anarchy,'” Seth Reno, Wittenberg Univ.

“Teaching Austen in Challenging Circumstances”
8:30-9:45am Riverway, Sheraton
Presiding: Emily Friedman, Auburn Univ., Auburn
Speakers: Dana Gliserman Kopans, State Univ. of New York, Empire State Coll.; Sarah Raff, Pomona Coll.; William J. Stroup, Keene State Coll.; Michael Verderame, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana;Janet Aikins Yount, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham
Session Description: In this roundtable, participants will describe issues they face in trying to bring Austen into the undergraduate classroom, in traditional and nontraditional settings, focusing on classroom problems that also translate to other courses that center on literature and culture of this period or on other authors who have attracted wide cultural attention.

“Teaching Byron”
8:30am-9:45am Liberty B, Sheraton
Presiding: Robin S. Hammerman, Stevens Inst. of Tech.
1. “‘Electricity in the Air’: Childe Harold III, Frankenstein, and More,” Susan J. Wolfson, Princeton Univ.
2. “Sortes Byronicae: Don Juan par hasard,” Charles Waite Mahoney, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs
3. “Byron’s ‘Darkness’ and Student Reception,” G. Todd Davis, Kentucky State Univ.
4. “Don Juan for First-Year Undergraduates,” Paul Whickman, Univ. of Nottingham

“Accessing Romanticism through Atlantic Slavery: Period, Archive, Memory, Scholarship”
10:15-11:30am Beacon D, Sheraton
Presiding: Joel Frederic Pace, Univ. of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Speakers: Joselyn M. Almeida, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst; Frances Botkin, Towson Univ.;Misty Gonzales, Univ. of Glasgow; Lucia Hodgson, Texas A&M Univ., College Station; Frank Lumsden, Charles Town, Jamaica; Denys Van Renen, Univ. of Nebraska, Kearney; Paul Youngquist, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
For more information, write to luciahodgson@tamu.edu after 20 Dec.
Session Description: As transatlantic has emerged as an operative adjective in academic discourse, Romanticism has surfaced as a site of contestation, exchange, and innovation. This roundtable will position Romanticism as a set of cultural productions created through the roots and routes of Atlantic slavery as a way to focus a broader conversation about current academic trends, methodologies, and opportunities.

“Narrating Value in the Long Eighteenth Century”
10:15-11:30am The Fens, Sheraton
Presiding: Steven L. Newman, Temple Univ., Philadelphia
1. “William Byrd’s Hard Sell: History, Fiction, and the Making of the Global-Financial Plantation,”Rob McLoone, Univ. of Iowa
2. “Experts, Intellectuals, and Financial Controversy in the 1790s,” Alexander Dick, Univ. of British Columbia
3. “Constructing Liberal Value: From the Scottish Enlightenment to Hannah Arendt,” Hina Nazar, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana
For abstracts, visit sites.temple.edu/snewmanbio/mla-2013-panel-narrating-value/.

“Romanticism and Theories of Emotion”
1:45-3:30pm Berkeley, Sheraton
Presiding: Richard C. Sha, American Univ.
1. “Romantic New Historicism and Its Afteraffects,” Daniel Block, Hampshire Coll.
2. “Rembrandt and the Face of Materialism: 1757–1824,” Steven Richard Goldsmith, Univ. of California, Berkeley
3. “Posthumous Affection: The Legacies of Keats and Shelley,” Karen Swann, Williams Coll.

“Material Culture and the Phenomenologies of Time, 1760-1810”
 3:30-4:45pm Jefferson, Sheraton
Presiding: Lynn M. Festa, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick
1. “The Impress of the Invisible,” Cynthia S. Wall, Univ. of Virginia
2. “Past Repasts: Iterative Eating in Vathek,” Barrett Kalter, Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
3. “Performing Anachronism: Antiquarianism and the Body as Artifact,” Katharina Boehm, Univ. of Regensburg
Responding: Lynn M. Festa
For abstracts, visit www.uni-regensburg.de/sprache-literatur-kultur/anglistik/staff/boehm/index.html.

“Reimagining the Romantic Imagination”
3:30-4:45pm Independence West, Sheraton
Presiding: Alan Richardson, Boston Coll.
1. “Wordsworthian Reimaginings: ‘Mental Spaces’ in The Prelude and Conceptual Blending Theory,” Mark Bruhn, Regis Univ.
2. “John Thelwall’s Materialist Imagination,” Yasmin Solomonescu, Univ. of Notre Dame
3. “Reading One’s Own Mind: Hazlitt, Cognition, Fiction,” John Savarese, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick

“Romantic Realism, Victorian Romance”
5:15-6:30pm Independence West, Sheraton
Presiding: Eileen Gillooly, Columbia Univ.; Maureen Noelle McLane, New York Univ.
Speakers: Ian Duncan, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Mary A. Favret, Indiana Univ., Bloomington; Catherine Mary Robson, New York Univ.; Herbert F. Tucker, Univ. of Virginia
Session Description: Might Romanticists and Victorianists become one people? The job market asks our younger colleagues to become hybrid Romanticist-Victorianist scholars. Yet crucial aspects of that hybridity have not been explored. Scholars will give five-minute “provocations,” address one another on the generic topics of romance and realism, and open the topic for general discussion with the audience.

Cash bar arranged by the Division on the English Romantic Period and the Division on the Victorian Period
7-8:15 Republic Ballroom, Sheraton

Unofficial cash bar for Review 19
9:30-10:30pm Sidebar & Grill, Sheraton Hotel

Saturday, January 5

“John Clare: Nature and the Self”
1:45-3pm Independence East, Sheraton
Presiding: Samantha Celeste Harvey, Boise State Univ.
1. “From Wild Badgers to Human Beasts: John Clare and the Question of Nonhuman Nature,”Ashton Nichols, Dickinson Coll.
2. “Can the Subaltern Soil Speak? Should English Trees Have Standing? John Clare and Swordy Well,” Judith Abrams Plotz, George Washington Univ.
3. “John Clare, Ecological Abstraction, and the Abstraction of the Self,” Scott Hess, Earlham Coll.

“Mixture and Impurity”
1:45-3pm Liberty C, Sheraton
Presiding: William Beatty Warner, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
1. “Mixture Unbound,” Wolfram Michael Schmidgen, Washington Univ. in St. Louis
2. “Shaken, Not Stirred: The Mixology of Scottish Character in Robert Fergusson’s Poetry,”Sören Hammerschmidt, Ghent Univ.
3. “Poetry in the Unnecessarily Restricted Sense in Scott’s Waverley,” Nicholas Bujak, Johns Hopkins Univ., MD
4. “Privilege, Virtue, and Mixed Race in The Female American; or, The Adventures of Unca Eliza Winkfield,” Denise Mary MacNeil, Univ. of Redlands

“Pining for Scotland: An Arboreal Nation”
1:45-3pm Riverway, Sheraton
Presiding: Evan M. Gottlieb, Oregon State Univ.
1. “John Evelyn and the Forestry of Imagination,” James C. McKusick, Univ. of Montana
2. “Importing Trees and Exporting People: Walter Scott’s Transatlantic Ecology,” Susan Oliver, Univ. of Essex
3. “The Great Caledonian Forest of the Mind: Highland Woods and Tree Symbolism in Scottish Gaelic Tradition,” Michael Newton, Saint Francis Xavier Univ.
For abstracts, write to soliver@essex.ac.uk after 15 Dec.

“Jane Moody and Romantic Theater Studies: An Illegitimate Legacy”
3:30-4:45pm Independence West, Sheraton
Presiding: Kevin Gilmartin, California Inst. of Tech
1. “What Was ‘Regency’ about the Regency Theatre?” Gillian Russell, Australian National Univ.
2. “Illegitimate? Children in Late-Georgian Theater,” Julie Ann Carlson, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
3. “Context as Text: Illegitimate Pantomime on the Legitimate Stage,” Jeffrey N. Cox, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
4. “Legitimate and Illegitimate Africans: Colman, Astley, and the Wide World of London Entertainment,” Daniel O’Quinn, Univ. of Guelph
Responding: Greg P. Kucich, Univ. of Notre Dame

“Rethinking Agency in Early Black Atlantic Literature”
5:15-6:30pm Beacon E, Sheraton
1. “The Black Atlantic and the Transatlantic Book Trade,” Sean D. Moore, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham
2. “Ignatius Sancho and the Ideological Stakes of Everyday Life,” David Samuel Mazella, Univ. of Houston
3. “Genre, Authority, and Human Rights in Eighteenth-Century Black Atlantic Autobiography,”George Boulukos, Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale
For abstracts, write to ramesh.mallipeddi@hunter.cuny.edu after 15 Dec.

Sunday, January 6

“British Romantic Books”
8:30-9:45am Fairfax A, Sheraton
Presiding: Jonathan Farina, Seton Hall Univ.
1. “Shakespeare Reimaged: Grangerized Collections in the Romantic Era,” Michael Steven Macovski, Georgetown Univ.
2. “Publishers and Lawyers,” Gary R. Dyer, Cleveland State Univ.
3. “The Parliamentary Anthology and the Mediation of the Romantic Author,” Katie Homar, Univ. of Pittsburgh
4. “The Piper at the Gates of Paradise: William Blake and Joseph Johnson,” Joseph Byrne, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

“Romantic Media Studies: Means of Reading and Reading for Means”
8:30-9:15am 203, Hynes
Presiding: Yohei Igarashi, Colgate Univ.; Lauren A. Neefe, Stony Brook Univ., State Univ. of New York
Speakers: Miranda Jane Burgess, Univ. of British Columbia; Mary Helen Dupree, Georgetown Univ.; Kevis Goodman, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Yohei Igarashi; Celeste G. Langan, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Maureen Noelle McLane, New York Univ.; Tom Mole, McGill Univ.
For project statements, panelist biographies, description of format, and scholarship genealogy, visit mediageist.wordpress.com after 30 Nov.
Session Description: A roundtable of scholars discusses and defines “Romantic media studies,” one of the most vibrant approaches to Romantic literature today. Spanning British, German, and transatlantic Romanticisms, the exchange considers Romantic-era media while reflecting on methods of reading for media, mediations, and networks as well as on the relation between Romantic criticism and the digital humanities.

“Teaching Jane Austen in Emerging Contexts”
10:15-11:30am Gardner, Sheraton
Presiding: Devoney Looser, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia
Speakers: Eric M. Eisner, George Mason Univ.; Emily Friedman, Auburn Univ., Auburn; Beth Lau, California State Univ., Long Beach; Michelle Nancy Levy, Simon Fraser Univ., Burnaby; Donna S. Parsons, Univ. of Iowa; Meghan Rosing, Lehigh Univ.; Juliette C. Wells, Manhattanville Coll.
Session Description: Participants consider Jane Austen in emerging contexts, including Gothic literature, book publishing, Romantic poets, Harry Potter, pop cultural Austens, children’s literature, and digital environments. Discussion will consider new classroom challenges, particularly in single-author courses, where students may misperceive her circumstances and the scope of her writings.

“Slow Time”
noon-1:15pm The Fens, Sheraton
Presiding: Kevis Goodman, Univ. of California, Berkeley
1. “How Art Slows Time: Denis Diderot; Jacques-Louis David; Emma, Lady Hamilton; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Susan Sontag,” Arden Reed, Pomona Coll.
2. “Aesthetic Moments in Burke and Radcliffe,” Amit Yahav, Univ. of Haifa
3. “Romanticisms, Fast and Slow,” Jonathan Sachs, Concordia Univ.

“Anthropomorphism”
1:45-3pm 206, Hynes
Presiding: Sara Guyer, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
1. “Making the Gestell Sing: Romantic Music Theory, Virtuoso Performance, and the Aesthetics of Machines,” Helmut Heinz Müller-Sievers, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
2. “Industrial Anthropomorphism and the Victorian Factory Question,” Jessica Kuskey, Syracuse Univ.
3. “Antimorphism,” Monique Allewaert, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

 

One Response to “Romantics at the 2013 MLA Convention”

1. Mary Anne Myers says:

   November 7, 2012 at 7:22 pm

   Thank you for doing this. It’s lovely!