We are looking for three papers to present on a panel titled "A Matter of Conscience: Guilt, Salvation, and the Self in the Eighteenth Century" for the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (ASECS) Conference in Atlanta, GA March 22-25, 2007.

The “conscience” is at the center of some of the most important theoretical issues of eighteenth-century political theory, jurisprudence, and theology.

Implicated in questions of sin and guilt, innocence and salvation, and the boundary between the public and private, the “conscience” served as a cornerstone in the construction of new forms of selfhood. The aim of this panel is to historicize the category of conscience in two ways. First, it will explore the ways that the conscience was defined within a range of eighteenth-century discourses – literary, political, judicial, theological, psychological. Second, we also invite papers that move beyond iterations and explanations of the theoretical category of the conscience by offering a history of the category. Specifically, we want to invite papers that explore whether and how the theoretical category of conscience was put into practice by both institutions of authority and ordinary people in their everyday lives.

We welcome proposals dealing with geographic contexts across Europe and/or the Atlantic World, but all papers should focus on the long eighteenth-century.

Deadline for proposals: September 15, 2006