40th Annual Conference of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association
March 7-9, 2019
Kansas City, Missouri
EXPLORATIONS
The NCSA conference committee invites proposals that examine the theme of explorations in the history, literature, art, music and popular culture of the nineteenth century.
Disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to this theme are welcome from North American, British, European, Asian, African and worldwide perspectives.
From the early nineteenth century, when Lewis and Clark paddled through the Kansas City area on their way up the Missouri River to explore the North American continent, through the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the building of factories and railroads, the mechanization of agriculture, and the advent of mass-produced cultural artifacts, the American Midwest became a crossroads for explorers and inventors, hucksters and entrepreneurs, artists and musicians, poets and dreamers who pursued their discoveries toward destinations made possible by the wide-open spaces of the Great Plains. In this way, the Kansas City region is emblematic of a larger set of trends in the global evolution of culture that radically altered the fundamental conditions of human existence during the nineteenth century.
How does the discovery of new geographical knowledge change the perception of human possibility?
How do innovations in science and technology affect the development of literature, music and art?
How does the recovery of previously unheard voices – of women, of workers, of ethnic minorities and people of color – influence the understanding of social history in America and the wider world?
Topics for investigation include encounters between Western explorers and indigenous people; the impact of steamships and railways upon changing perceptions of time and space; resistance and accommodation between traditional folkways and mass-produced culture; and the development of new idioms in literature, art and music to express the broader horizons of nineteenth-century self-awareness.
Proposals are due by September 30, 2018. Send 300-word abstracts (as an email attachment in MS Word format) along with a one-page CV to ncsa2019@gmail.com
Call for Roundtable Proposals:
Roundtable discussions provide conference attendees the opportunity to engage in spirited conversation and collaborative exchange of information and resources. The format of roundtable discussions will be lively, interactive discourse among presenters and conference participants, not lecture or panel-style delivery.
Roundtable sessions will be 80 minutes long. Presenters should regard themselves primarily as facilitators and should limit their own prepared remarks to five minutes or less. Extensive collaboration among the presenters before the conference is encouraged, since the goal is to foster extensive, diverse, and cogent perspectives on interdisciplinary research topics of general interest to NCSA members.
Roundtables should be pre-organized by a group of 4-8 presenters. To propose a roundtable topic, please send a single 300-word abstract describing the general topic of the roundtable (as an email attachment in MS Word format) to ncsa2019@gmail.com.
Your abstract should include the proposed session title and the full name of each presenter, with their email and phone contacts, job title and affiliation. Indicate which presenter has agreed to serve as discussion moderator. Please be sure to confirm the participation of all presenters before submitting your abstract.
Roundtable proposals are due by September 30, 2018.
Conference Venue: The conference will be held at the newly renovated Marriott Country Club Plaza in midtown Kansas City, adjacent to the open-air shops and restaurants of the Country Club Plaza and in easy walking distance of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Conference Registration will open in December 2018. AV requirements are due January 1, early registration closes on January 20, and registration ends on February 20.
Conference website: http://www.ncsaweb.net/Current-Conference
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