Conference:
"Histories of Print, Manuscript, and Performance
in America"
June 10-12, 2005
Places are still available for the conference, but the deadline to
guarantee registration is 12 noon (ET) on Wednesday, June 8. Please
submit your registration with payment as soon as possible. The deadlines
for reserving rooms at the two conference hotels have passed. Space might
be available in Worcester-area hotels and motels at non-conference rates.
This conference, held under the auspices of the American Antiquarian
Society's Program in the History of the Book in American Culture, will
examine how the
verbal arts of print, manuscript, and performance reflected and influenced
each other, often in unpredictable ways, in pre-twentieth-century America.
The highly fluid boundaries of print, manuscript, and performance had
profound implications for the development of American literature and
politics.
More than two dozen speakers will explore these issues in a variety of
panel presentations. In addition, Sandra Gustafson, associate professor
of early
American literature at the University of Notre Dame, and author of
Eloquence Is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America, will
deliver
the Society's annual James Russell Wiggins Lecture in the History of the
Book, on Friday, June 10, at 7:30 p.m., which will serve as the conference
keynote address. The lecture will be open to the public as well as to
conference registrants.
Funding from Readex, a division of NewsBank, Inc., will help support
conference receptions and reduced registration fees for graduate students.
The list of panels, with descriptions of themes linking the papers,
follows. The order of the panels as listed here may not be the order of
presentation during the conference.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Friday, June 10, 2005
| 11-11:30 am | Welcome and
Introduction (First Baptist Church) |
| 11:30 am-1 pm |
Benjamin Franklin's Circulations in the Atlantic World
Benjamin Franklin, celebrated as a foundational figure in American
culture, achieved his reputation as a printer, postmaster, and diplomat in
North America. Yet he was, in his own day, involved in creating
transatlantic affiliations, in cultural and informational media, in
politics, and in natural philosophy. Taking up Franklin's transatlantic
work evident in both manuscript and print, the panelists are considering
Franklin in the cosmopolitan context of Atlantic culture and its
performances.
Panel chair: Wayne Franklin (English, Northeastern University)
-
Jesse M. Lander (English
Department, University of Notre Dame),
"Franklin's
'Disputatious
Turn': Reading Conversions, Rhetoric, and the Transatlantic Rise of
Politeness"
- Christopher Hunter
(Comparative Literature, University of
Pennsylvania),
"`Ashamed
of No
Origin': The Cosmopolitan History of Benjamin Franklin's
Autobiography"
- Carla Mulford (English
Department, Penn State University), "Savage
Eloquence: Benjamin Franklin's Press at Passy, 1782-1783"
|
| 1-2 pm | Luncheon |
| 2-3:30 pm | Manipulating
Media
The papers on this panel examine the successful manipulation of verbal
media -- and the failures that define success in print, manuscript, and
performance.
Panel chair:
Robert A. Gross (history, University of Connecticut)
- David Shields (English and History, University of South Carolina),
"Poor
Performance: Failure in Print, Manuscript, and Speech"
- Joan Radner (Literature, American University), "Speaking Our Way to
Improvement:
Orality, Literacy, and Manuscript Traditions in Northern New England
Villages"
- Susan Williams (English,
Ohio State University), "New Voices, New
Venues: James Redpath and the Promotion of American Civic Discourse"
|
| 3:30-4 pm | Break |
| 4-5:30 pm |
Print, Manuscript, and Performance and the Public Sphere
These three papers all make important contributions to public sphere
theory, using analysis of the relations among verbal media to do so.
Panel chair: Michael Warner (English, Rutgers University)
- Carolyn Eastman (History,
UT- Austin), "Making American Audiences in
an
Eighteenth-Century Commercial Republic"
- Lloyd Pratt (English and
African American Studies, Yale University),
"Semiprivate Space and a Democracy of Race"
- Oz Frankel (Historical
Studies, New School University), "The State
between
Orality
and Textuality: Government Reports as 'Orature'"
|
| 5:30 pm | Reception
and dinner (Goddard-Daniels House) |
| 7:30 pm | James Russell
Wiggins Lecture (Antiquarian Hall)
"The Emerging Media of Early America"
by Sandra Gustafson
(English Department, University of Notre Dame) |
Saturday, June 11, 2005
| 9-10:30 am |
Mediating "Race" (Antiquarian Hall)
The symbolic and social meanings of print, manuscript, and performance
were constituted dialectically with concepts of "race." The papers on
this panel explore complementary dimensions of the interaction between
racial identities and verbal media.
Panel chair: Laura Murray (English, Queen's University)
- Thomas L. Doughton
(Interdisciplinary Studies, College of the Holy
Cross), "'Long Wide de Grande Folkes': Slave Literacy and African
Participation in
the World of Social Communication in Colonial New England"
- Phillip H. Round (English,
University of Iowa), "Authors and Indians:
From
Performance to Print in Nineteenth-Century Indian Country"
- Heather S. Nathans (Theater, University of Maryland, College Park),
"'Chaos is
come
again': Othello, Amalgamation, and the Destruction
of Pennsylvania Hall"
|
| 10:30-11 am | Break |
| 11am - 12:30 pm |
Gendered Histories of Print, Manuscript, and Performance
All three papers on this panel challenge key historiographical
assumptions
about verbal media, with gender as the fulcrum.
Panel chair: Pat Crain (English, University of Minnesota)
- Hilary E. Wyss (English, Auburn
University), "Native Women and Writing
in
Colonial
New England"
- Granville Ganter (English,
St. John's University), "Is It Oratory?:
Women and
Public Speech in the 1820s"
- Joycelyn Moody (English, Saint
Louis
University), "Silenced Women and
Silent
Language
in Early African- and Anglo-American Newspapers"
|
| 12:30-1:30 pm |
Luncheon (Goddard-Daniels House) |
| 1:30-3 pm |
Subjectivity and Form (Antiquarian Hall)
The papers on this panel explore the constitution of subjectivity
through
acts of reading, writing, and performance from the Puritans through the
nineteenth century.
Panel chair: David D. Hall (history, Harvard Divinity School)
- Matthew P. Brown
(English/Center for the Book, University of Iowa),
"Hand
Piety: Devotional Steady
Sellers and the Conduct of Reading"
- Angela Vietto (English,
Eastern Illinois University), "Sarah Wentworth
Morton,
Revolutionary Salonniere to Isolated Romantic Thinker: Changing Values of
Verbal Performance and Women's Authorship in the Early Republic"
- Thomas
Augst (English, University of Minnesota), "Scripting the Inner
Voice:
Diaries and the Performance of Individuality"
|
| 3-4 pm |
Workshop on sources
Workshop, by AAS staff, on research materials for the study of
histories
of print,
manuscript, and performance
Georgia B. Barnhill (Andrew
W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts), and
Thomas G. Knoles (Curator of
Manuscripts)
"Research Materials for the Study of the Spoken Word and Public
Performance
at AAS"
|
| 4-4:30 pm |
Break |
| 4:30-6 pm |
Between Stage and Page
This panel examines the dynamic interaction between written or printed and
performed theatrical works.
Panel chair: Elizabeth Dillon (English and American studies, Yale
University)
- Jeffrey Richards
(English, Old Dominion University), "Theater's Deep
Well:
Drama
and Dissemination in the Eighteenth Century"
- Lucy Rinehart (English,
DePaul University), "Between Stage and Page:
The
Publication of Plays in the U.S., 1785-1830"
- Katherine Wilson (Theatre,
CUNY), "The Path of a Script: Louisa
Medina's
1838 Melodrama 'Nick of the Woods'"
|
| 7:00 pm | Reception
and dinner (Herron House, 80 William Street) |
Sunday, June 12, 2005
| 8:30-10:00 am |
Lyric Enactments (Antiquarian Hall)
The circulation of musical and poetic performances -- geographically as
well as between printed and vocal forms -- is the shared focus of these
three papers.
Panel chair: Caroline Sloat (American Antiquarian Society)
- Philip Gura (English,
UNC-Chapel Hill), "The Print Revolution and the
Recording, Transmission, and Performance of American Vernacular Music"
- Coleman Hutchison
(English, Northwestern University), "Of Song and
Songsters:
The
Civil War Song in Print and Performance Publics"
- Ingrid Satelmajer
(English, University of Maryland - College Park),
"Print
Poetry
as Oral 'Event' in Nineteenth-Century American Periodicals"
|
| 10-10:15 am |
Break |
| 10:15-11:45 am |
Visual Texts and Performances
These three papers explore the ideological and symbolic functions of
visual texts and the dynamic interaction between the visual and the
performed.
Panel chair: Barbara Lacey (history, St. Joseph College)
- Peter Stallybrass
(English, University of Pennsylvania), "Rewriting
'K':
Monarchy,
the Alphabet, and the Calendar in Colonial and Revolutionary America"
- Martin Brückner (English,
University of Delaware), "Wall Maps, Dramas,
and
Metaphors: Symbolic Practice in Early Anglo-American Society"
- Laura Schiavo (Director of
Museum Programs, Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington),
"Reading the Image: Visual Culture as Print Culture and the Performance of
the Bourgeois Self"
|
| 11:45-12 noon | Closing
Remarks |
DETAILS ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
The conference will take place at the American Antiquarian Society in
Worcester, Massachusetts, beginning at 11 a.m. on Friday, June 10, 2005,
and concluding at noon on Sunday, June 12.
Costs
The comprehensive fee for the conference is $160 ($115 for graduate
students). The fee includes all coffee breaks, two receptions and
dinners, and two lunches.
Registration
Please print the registration form, fill it
out, and mail it with payment,
either check or credit card, to:
Conference Registration
American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609-1634
Space at the
conference is limited, so please register early.
Information about housing
Housing, at special conference rates, is available at two Worcester
hotels, the Courtyard by Marriott and the Hampton Inn. By car, both are
only minutes from the Society. The Courtyard is about a ten-minute walk
from AAS, the Hampton Inn about twenty-five.
- Worcester Courtyard by Marriott, 72 Grove Street, Worcester, MA
01608
Tel. (508) 363-0300; fax (508) 537-5555
$104 single or double, plus tax
Reserve by phoning the hotel at (508) 363-0300 or Marriott Reservations at
(800) 321-2211.
You must mention "American Antiquarian Society - History of the Book
Conference" to
earn conference rate.
Deadline for reservations is Friday, May 13.
- Hampton Inn, 110 Summer Street, Worcester, MA 01608
Tel. (508) 757-0400; fax (508) 831-9839
$99 single or double, plus tax, continental breakfast included
Reserve by phoning the hotel at (508) 757-0400.
Mention "American Antiquarian Society" to earn conference rate.
Deadline for reservations is Saturday, May 21.
Contact Information
- For more information about the conference in general and about the
conference program in particular, contact:
John Hench (jhench[at]mwa.org;
508-471-2128)
- For questions relating to registration logistics, contact:
Cheryl
McRell
(cmcrell[at]mwa.org; 508-471-2149)
|
|
Details about the conference, including costs,
registration materials,
and information about housing.
For more information about the conference in general and about the
conference
program in particular, contact John Hench (jhench[at]mwa.org;
508-471-2128).
For questions relating to registration logistics, contact Cheryl McRell
(cmcrell[at]mwa.org; 508-471-2149).
Conference Abstracts,
Listed in Order of Presentation
The 2005 AAS Summer Seminar in the History
of
the Book in American
Culture, entitled "Publishing God: Printing, Preaching, and Reading in
Eighteenth-Century America" and led by Michael Warner and Peter
Stallybrass, will begin on Sunday, June 12, immediately following the
conclusion of the conference.
Traveling to AAS
|
|
