Graduate students at the University of Connecticut are hosting a graduate student conference entitled "Coming to Our Senses: Rediscovering Early America." The full call for papers is below:

James L. and Shirley A. Draper Graduate Student Conference on Early American Studies

November 10-12, 2005

Call for Papers

Early America not only looks different but smells, feels, sounds and tastes different thanks to a burgeoning new literature on the history of the senses. Recent works demonstrate the significance of the senses for society and culture, as has the scholarship of our distinguished keynote speaker Rhys Isaac, author of The Transformation of Virginia and the recent Landon CarterǃÙs Uneasy Kingdom. Reflecting this developing interest in how the senses mediate perceptions of selfhood and the environment, the University of Connecticut History Department and the American Antiquarian Society invite graduate students to submit paper proposals for the inaugural James L. and Shirley A. Draper Graduate Student Conference on Early American Studies, to be held in Storrs, Connecticut, and Worcester, Massachusetts. This conference welcomes related research and encourages interdisciplinary approaches dealing with the areas now comprising the United States, the Americas and the Atlantic World from the sixteenth through early nineteenth centuries. Paper topics might include but are not limited to:

• The role of the senses in shaping perceptions of humanity, the encounters between diverse people in the Americas

• Sensuality, sexuality and gendered conceptions of sensation

• Cultural aspects of sense history, including foodways, fashion, music, speech and other soundways

• Sensory perspectives on religious, spiritual and other transformative experiences

• Metaphors of sensory experience as depicted in language, print, text and visual images

• Sensory dimensions of material culture, consumption and aesthetic notions of taste and style

Submission Guidelines:

All submissions must be received by April 30, 2005, and notifications of acceptance will be made by June 1, 2005. Interested graduate students should submit a 200- to 300-word abstract and a brief C.V. Please submit materials electronically in Word format and include ǃ?Draper Conference on Early American Studiesǃ? in the subject line.

Please send proposals or comments to:

Patrick G. Blythe (patrick.blythe AT uconn DOT edu)

If I had time, I would submit a paper on perceptions of filth and cleanliness (my new favorite research topic). I still might, given how progress on THE PAPER goes this week. Nevertheless, it seems like a great conference, so pass the word to whoever might be interested.

In other news: Alison Landsberg, who's done some terrific work on prosthetic memory, has agreed to be my second reader for my Cultural History and Theory minor field. Now I just have to write the minor field statement. I'm way behind on my New Media minor field, so I need to get on that as well.

Update

Here's a link to the Call for Papers at H-Net