James Fenimore Cooper Society ALA Conference Boston 2019

The James Fenimore Cooper Society will host two panels at the 30^th Annual Conference of the American Literature Association, to be held in Boston, MA at the Westin Copley Place, May 23-26, 201

Panel 1: The Literary Age of Jackson

James Fenimore Cooper and his contemporaries lived through one of the nation’s formative periods giving both cultural and expressive form to the dramatic changes that occurred during The Age of Jackson. We invite papers that explore literary responses to this period as broadly constituted from a variety of perspectives. Please submit a 250-word abstract, a brief cv (2-3 pages), and an indication of whether or not the paper may be published in the James Fenimore Cooper Society Journal by January 11, 2019. Please also indicate any audio-visual requirements. All proposals should be both pasted into the text of the email and included as attachments (word files or pdfs preferred). For additional information, please visit the James Fenimore Cooper Society webpage for resources and visual archives: (https://jfcoopersociety.org/)

             Panel 2: Reading for Enchantment: Reading James Fenimore Cooper and his Contemporaries

Rita Felski, in Uses of Literature (2008), suggests a “post-criticism” approach to reading, one that reads for recognition, enchantment, knowledge, and shock. First and foremost, Cooper and his contemporaries sought national and social recognition through literary works that sought to entertain, inform, and enliven their readers. We invite papers that explore the works of James Fenimore Cooper and his contemporaries from the perspective of reading for pleasure and enchantment: reading for fun and insight. Submit a 250-word abstract, a brief CV (2-3 pages), and an indication of whether or not the paper may be published in the James Fenimore Cooper Society Journal by January 11, 2019. Please also indicate any audio-visual requirements. All proposals should be both pasted into the text of the email and included as attachments (word files or pdfs preferred). For additional information, please visit the James Fenimore Cooper Society webpage for resources and visual archives: (https://jfcoopersociety.org/); especially “Reading Cooper for Pleasure” https://jfcoopersociety.org/introduction/reading.html  

Papers should be a maximum of 15-20 minutes (6-8 pages) in length. Brief discussion will follow the presentations. Presenters need not be members of the James Fenimore Cooper Society, though we certainly hope they will choose to join. Please note that as per ALA guidelines, no one may present more than one paper at the conference.

Papers presented at the conference will, with their authors' permission, be published in the James Fenimore Cooper Society Journal and made available online at the Cooper Society website. Papers may be mildly revised for publication.