STEP - Science and Technology in the European Periphery

Call for Papers

Knowledge Networks: American Periodicals, Print Cultures, and Communities

One-day Symposium
School of American and Canadian Studies
University of Nottingham, UK
Friday May 27, 2011

Plenary speaker:
Leon Jackson, Associate Professor of English, University of South Carolina
Author of: The Business of Letters: Authorial Economies in Antebellum
America (2008)

The recent turn to the study of print culture in American literary and
cultural histories has increasingly focused scholarly attention on the
dynamic interaction between writing, reading, and publishing. This has
opened up a range of new perspectives on the networks of communication that
shape and define creative, political, and intellectual communities. The
“Knowledge Networks” symposium will explore these perspectives through the
particular example of the American periodical as a public site of debate and
exchange.

How have American periodicals made broader social, political, and
intellectual trends and patterns visible? What role has professionalization
played in the development of periodical publication? In what ways have
readers engaged with American print culture through magazines? What
communities have been created and shaped by American periodicals at
different moments in the country’s history?

This one-day symposium seeks to address such questions through the analysis
and interpretation of periodical content, while also exploring the status,
influence, and interrelation of authors, illustrators, publishers, printers,
and editors. We welcome proposals for individual papers and/or panels that
engage with American periodicals from a wide range of disciplinary angles,
including literary and intellectual history, literary studies, cultural
history, visual culture, the history of science, and Victorian studies. In
particular, we encourage papers looking at the nineteenth century, although
submissions on American print culture in all periods are welcome.

We hope that this interdisciplinary conversation will also prompt some
reflection on the various methodological approaches to the study of print
culture currently in use, and suggest new ways of mapping and visualising
the social networks in which periodical literature is embedded. For further
details about the symposium and the larger “Knowledge Networks” research
project, please visit http://knowledgenetworks.wordpress.com.

Proposals for papers (20 minutes), with a 300-word abstract and one-page CV,
should be submitted to Dr Matthew Pethers and Dr Robin Vandome, School of
American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham, by Monday 31
January 2011 at the symposium email address:
knowledgenetworksproject@gmail.com. There will be no delegate fee and
limited funds are available to help some panellists with travel expenses.