Early African American Print Culture
In Theory and Practice
A conference co-sponsored by
The Library Company and
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Philadelphia, 18–20 March 2010
The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mark both the inauguration of an African American literary tradition and the consolidation of American print culture. Yet these two most vibrant areas for American Studies scholarship are rarely considered in relation to one another. To the extent that scholars understand African American print culture at all, we do so with a dependence on critical models that assume that print is a stabilizing technology that underwrites the establishment of African American identity. But while the technology of print fixes impressions, print culture designates a world in which print both integrates with other practices and assumes a life of its own.
Working from the notion that the study of print culture has much to teach us about early African American literature and that early African American literature has the capacity to transform our understanding of print culture, the Library Company of Philadelphia and the McNeil Center for early American Studies will co-sponsor an interdisciplinary conference on African American print culture before the Harlem Renaissance, to be held in Philadelphia from March 18-20, 2010.
The organizers welcome proposals for papers of approximately thirty pages in length, to be pre-circulated to all conference participants. Our understanding of “African American print culture” is capacious, including hemispheric or transatlantic locations, and editors, readers, printers, and distributors, as well as authors. We are especially interested in transnational approaches, visual print culture, and interpretations of material texts. Accepted papers will be due by January 15, 2010. Some support for participants’ travel and lodging will be available.
Submit 600-word proposals and curriculum vitae by 15 February 2009 to mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu or:
Early African American Print Culture
McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4531
Please direct questions or comments about the conference to the organizers: Jordan Stein and Lara Cohen.
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