44th Annual Meeting of seasecs
March 22-25, 2018
orlando, fl

The 44th Annual Meeting of SEASECS will take place in Orlando, FL in conjunction with the 49th Annual Meeting of ASECS. Our annual SEASECS business meeting as well as a dozen SEASECS panels will allow us to meet as a society within the larger group while giving SEASECS members the opportunity of attending the varied activities of the larger national meeting: the book exhibit, Clifford and Presidential lectures, and a wide array of almost 200 interdisciplinary panels. We hope to see you at SEASECS-ASECS 2018!

CALL FOR PAPERS. Please note that because our panels will be included in the ASECS program, the deadlines for the 2018 meeting are EARLIER than usual. There are two ways to participate in the 12 panels that SEASECS will have at ASECS. All proposals must be received by September 18, 2017. 

  • INDIVIDUAL PAPER PROPOSALS are due to Saralyn DeSmet at sdesmet@wesleyancollege.edu

  • PAPERS FOR OPEN PANELS are due to the panel chair as listed below.

"Autobiography and Portraiture in the Long Eighteenth Century” (roundtable honoring Byron R. Wells)
Saralyn DeSmet, panel chair sdesmet@wesleyancollege.edu
A steadfast member of SEASECS, Dr. Wells retired as Professor of Romance Languages from Wake Forest University in 2016, and stepped down as longtime Executive Director of ASECS, summer 2017. This roundtable seeks short presentations from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to engage in overlapping and divergent ideas of topics such as, but not limited to, self, subject, genre, representation, gender, voice, gaze, and the Other.

"Not Another Diversity Panel: A Roundtable on Inclusivity in 18th-Century Studies and Graduate Programs”
Shea Stuart, panel chair, lstuart@gardner-webb.edu
This roundtable seeks short presentations on strategies for increasing diversity and inclusion in our graduate programs as well as in our field.

"Decolonizing the Eighteenth Century: Native American, Caribbean, African, and Eastern Histories and Literatures”
Marta Kvande, panel chair, marta.kvande@ttu.edu
This panel seeks work on non-European histories and literatures that is not focused on the European encounter or gaze but rather aims to study these histories and literatures on their own terms

"New Scholarship in Eighteenth-Century French Studies"  
Rori Bloom, panel chair, ribloom@ufl.edu
This panel welcomes members' new work in our field.  

“Teaching the Eighteenth Century”
Martha Bowden, panel chair, mbowden@kennesaw.edu
Once again, I appeal to you to share your ideas for incorporating eighteenth-century studies into your classes. Whether you are teaching upper or graduate level classes dedicated to the period, hooking the unwary in sophomore literature surveys, sneaking a good book into freshman composition, or priming the pump in senior classes in high school, I want to hear from you and so does everyone else.
This panel takes the form of short (10 minute) presentations of concrete and practical ways to help all our students understand and appreciate the riches of the period.  Some of the approaches I am particularly interested in:

  • Use of social media and digital humanities sites

  • Innovative writing assignments, where writing is understood broadly as anything that produces a text, in whatever medium

  • Connecting general education students to the period

  • An assignment you first heard about in one of these sessions and adapted for your own purposes (we love to hear about the influence we are having)

  • An assignment you have developed for an AP course

The reality of the profession today is that many young scholars are adjuncts, general education lecturers, and teachers in private high schools.  Every one of us has something to offer and everyone can learn more. Regardless of your discipline or teaching context, we want to hear from you.
Send abstracts and a/v requirements to: Martha F. Bowden, Professor Emeritus, Kennesaw State University, mbowden@kennesaw.edu

ASECS INFORMATION. Paper proposals for ASECS panels are due by September 15, 2017. The ASECS CFP can be found at this link. The ASECS 2018 conference page is available here.

HOTEL RESERVATIONS. The Hilton Buena Vista Palace Hotel offers an excellent location from which to enjoy Orlando’s famous attractions at an attractive ASECS group rate. To make reservations, please use this link to the ASECS conference page.

GRADUATE STUDENT ESSAY PRIZE. SEASECS invites submissions for its annual Graduate Essay Prize competition. An award of $300 will be given for the best graduate student paper presented at the annual meeting of the society. The deadline for this year's awards is January 15, 2018 by 5:00 P.M. Please send submissions as PDF files and address any other queries about the prize to the chair of this year's committee, Shea Stuart at lstuart@gardner-webb.edu. For more information, see Graduate Student Essay Prize.