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Early America not only looks different but smells, feels, sounds and tastes different thanks to a burgeoning new literature on the history of the senses. Recent works demonstrate the significance of the senses for society and culture, as has the scholarship of our distinguished keynote speaker Rhys Isaac, author of The Transformation of Virginia and the recent Landon Carter’s Uneasy Kingdom. Reflecting this developing interest in how the senses mediate perceptions of selfhood and the environment, the University of Connecticut History Department and the American Antiquarian Society invite graduate students to submit paper proposals for the inaugural James L. and Shirley A. Draper Conference on Early American Studies, to be held in Storrs, Connecticut, and Worcester, Massachusetts, from November 10-12, 2005. This conference welcomes related research and encourages interdisciplinary approaches dealing with the areas now comprising the United States, the Americas and the Atlantic World from the sixteenth through early nineteenth centuries. Paper topics might include but are not limited to:
- The role of the senses in shaping perceptions of humanity, the encounters between diverse people in the Americas
- Sensuality, sexuality and gendered conceptions of sensation
- Cultural aspects of sense history, including foodways, fashion, music, speech and other soundways
- Sensory perspectives on religious, spiritual and other transformative experiences
- Metaphors of sensory experience as depicted in language, print, text and visual images
- Sensory dimensions of material culture, consumption and aesthetic notions of taste and style
Submission Guidelines:
All submissions must be received by April 30, 2005, notifications of acceptance will be made by June 1, 2005. Interested graduate students should submit a 200- to 300-word abstract and a brief C.V. Please submit materials electronically in Word format and include “Draper Conference on Early American Studies” in the subject line.
Please send proposals or comments to:
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