Newsletter No. 68

NEASECS 2005: Fredericton, New Brunswick, September 30-October 2, 2005
The University of New Brunswick is proud to host the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, to be held from 30 September - 2 October, 2005 at the Delta Fredericton Hotel.

Women's diaries, a row of city shop fronts, midwifery practices, a coffee cup, a frock coat and treasured pincushions may seem discordant elements; but they represent different aspects of training, expectation and expression in eighteenth-century life. This era laid the foundation for modern life. Within seemingly mundane practices lie the cultural, social and economic patterns that define an age. Scholars have spent increasing energies discovering and deciphering these phenomena. An inter-disciplinary perspective is essential for a full elucidation of quotidian practices, and this conference addresses this need.

The 2005 Annual Meeting will be an exploration of the everyday. The conference organizing committee, in collaboration with the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (NEASECS), invites papers to address the eighteenth-century everyday from cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary perspectives.

The conference's keynote address will be delivered by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, who will be speaking about "Fictions in the Kitchen." Dr. Ulrich has won numerous awards for her scholarship, including the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812.

A number of events await the conference participants. On Friday there will be a reception at the conference's host hotel, the Delta Fredericton. Saturday's banquet will be a colonial-style New Brunswick feast, held at the King's Landing Historic Settlement, a historic village and interpretation centre on the banks of the majestic Saint John River. A social hour will beheld in the historic village at the King's Head Inn prior to the banquet. The conference co-chairs, Corey Slumkoski and Beverly Lemire, encourage all curricular activities, NEASECS 2005 will feature differential registration fees for all graduate students attending.

The conference welcomes papers in the study of literature, visual arts, music and history, cultural studies, women's studies, critical theory, as well as material culture studies, in any national or cultural context. Particularly welcome are papers exploring the need for, and the uses of, technology in the interpretation of the past. Proposals of 150 words, accompanied by a short CV, should be sent to:

Corey Slumkoski:corey.slumkoski@unb.ca
Department of History
University of New Brunswick
P O Box 4400
Fredericton, NB, Canada E3B 5A3

Beverly Lemire: lemire@ualberta.ca
Department of History and Classics,
2-28 Henry Marshall Tory Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2H4

NEASECS 2004: Burlington, Vermont, November 4-6, 2004
The 150 members who attended this yearÕs conference "enjoyed a weekend of collegiality and scholarship at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel and University of Vermont Conference Center. In addition to the 40 sessions and 2 round table discussions, we had plenary talks addressed the conference theme of "Borders and Crossings" in two very different, but also very intriguing "ways. Kari Winter, (American Studies, SUNY at Buffalo) spoke on the topic "Bordering Freedom but Unable to Cross into the Promised Land: Africans in Early Vermont." Nicholas Saul (German, the University of Durham) brought the conference to a close with another type of border crossing: "Morbid? Suicide, Freedom, Human Dignity and the German Romantic Yearning for Death."

Other special events included the opening-night reading and concert in the University of Vermont Recital Hall. Philip Baruth (English, University of Vermont) gave a presentation based on his novel in-progress on the Brothers Boswell, and David Neiweem (Music, University of Vermont) arranged a musical program on the theme of "Crossing to the Promised Land" featuring, among others, the UVM Catamount Singers. The Catamount Singers also performed at the four-course "Eighteenth-Century Banquet" in the North Lounge of the old Billings Library at UVM that employed recipes from NEASECS member Sandra Sherman's book Fresh from the Past: Recipes and Revelations from Moll Flanders' Kitchen. Those who could not attend the banquet had the chance to sample hors dÕoeuvres from this book at the Friday evening book-signing party and reception at the Sheraton.

The NEASECS Treasurer's Report was presented by Charlotte Craig. The end of Fiscal Year balance of $23,976.91 was noted; the decision, for now, to hold the annual membership dues to $15.00 was stated; and the Federal TaxExemption for contributions to the Society by organizations and individuals restated. The approval of the TreasurerÕs Report was recommended by T.E.D Braun, seconded by Charles Knight, and approved by voice vote.

John OÕNeill presented the following Newsletter Editor's Report:

• Although the Society's fiscal year begins on September 1, the Secretary-Treasurer will assume that anydues payment made after June 1 is intended to apply to the coming year (including the Annual Meeting)unless the member specifically asks otherwise. Payments made between September 1 and May 31 will be assumed to apply to the current year unless otherwise specified.
• The current NEASECS Web site, generously provided by Jack Lynch, presents only general informationabout the Society. The Executive Board has requested that the Society create its own site. Hamilton College has agreed to host the site once it is developed. A request for a volunteer(s) to get this effortstarted was made and will be posted in the forthcoming Newsletter.
• The future distribution of the NEASECS Newsletter will be made electronically; members wishing to have printed copies mailed to them will be required to make their request known to the Editor.

David Hensley, outgoing President, expressed his thanks and appreciation to Pat Brückmann for her work on the Nominating Committee, to John OÕNeill for his assistance to the President and the Board, to Beverly Lemire for her acceptance of the responsibility for undertaking the 2005 conference, and to Dennis Mahoney for all of his work on the 2004 conference. He then asked Dennis Mahoney to speak to the attendees.

Dennis Mahoney, chair of the 2004 Annual Meeting, indicated that the conference was "a lot of work," but also a task that he encouraged Society members to undertake if they have not done so during their scholarly careers, either as Program Heads or as members of an organizing committee. He expressed his appreciation to the members of the 2004 Program Committee for their assistance, and to the staff of UVM Conference Services, helping him with the registration and administration.

He remarked how helpful it was to use the E-mail services for coordination with the respective participants and panelists. He was grateful and appreciative of the excellent quality of the papers presented.

Dennis stated he was looking forward to the 2005 conference (at which time he would be only a participant!).

He announced that the Edna Steeves Prize would be awarded at the following plenary session (Prize awarded to Michelle Styba, Harvard University, "Reading Authorial Intention in A Tale of a Tub").

Dennis announced the following graduate student recipients of the John O'Neill Bursaries:

• Gabriele Wurmitzer, Duke University
• Jessica Hollis, University of Kentucky
• Leslie Wickes, McGill University
• Anjili Babbar, University of Rochester
• Victoria Warren, Binghamton University
• Aya Tanaka, Rutgers University

Electronic Distribution of the NEASECS Newsletter
At the 2004 Annual Meeting, the Executive Board charged me, as editor of the SocietyÕs Newsletter, to arrange for its electronic distribution. Members of the Executive Board agreed that such electronic distribution would reduce substantially the cost of the Newsletter (currently between $1,000 and $1,200annually for two newsletters, or about 30% of the SocietyÕs annual expenditures) and would substantially reduce the problem of mailed copies that are returned because of incorrect or out-of-date addresses.
At the same time, the Board recognized that some members are unable to receive the Newsletter electronically. It was agreed that provision should be made for such members to continue to receive the Newsletter as a mailing.
I am working on proposals to establish a NEASECS web site at Hamilton College and will investigate the feasibility of (1) posting the Newsletter on the website; (2) making it possible for it to be downloaded as a PDF file; or preferably, both. I hope the new arrangement can begin with the next number of the Newsletter.
I ask each member to do one of the following:

• First, if you are willing to receive the Newsletter on the web or as a PDFfile, please send me an E-Mail message at joneill@hamilton.edu with your up-todate E-Mail address.
• Second, if you prefer to continue to receive the Newsletter by postal mail, please send me a message (either by E-Mail or postal mail) specifying this preference and confirming your postal address.

Call for Submissions:
Studies in Performance in the Long Eighteenth Century: Theatre, Music, Dance
Series Editors: Jane Milling, University of Exeter and Kathryn Lowerre, Michigan State University
Focusing on performance culture during the long eighteenth century, this series offers studies in all types of cultural performance including theatre, opera,dance, musical performance, and popular entertainments. It is a forum for interdisciplinary work, drawing the debates of historians and musicologists as well as literary, dance, theatre and opera scholars into a creative symbiosis.
The editors welcome studies which are concerned with British, European, and early American cultural history. Studies that concern themselves with theoretical questions surrounding acts of performance during this period are also welcome.
This series offers an invigorating venue for histories of theatre, music,dance, and opera, which concentrate on aspects of performance; performers, impresarios, venues, movements, modes of performance.
Proposals should take the form of either (1) a preliminary letter of inquiry, briefly describing the project; or (2) a formal prospectus including abstract, table of contents, sample chapter, estimate of length, estimate of the number and type of illustrations to be included, and a c.v.
Please send three copies of either type of proposal (one to each of the series editors and one to the publisher) to the addresses below:

Dr. Jane Milling
Department of Drama
School of Performance Arts
Thornlea
New North Road
Exeter EX4 4LA UK

Dr. Kathryn Lowerre
School of Music
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1043 USA

Erika Gaffney, Editor
Ashgate Publishing Company
101 Cherry Street, Suite 420
Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA
E-mail: egaffney@ashgate.com.

News of Members
Barbara Benedict (English, TrinityCollege) has published a lot lately! Among her fairly recent publications are "Readers, Writers, Reviewers, and the Professionalization of Literature" in the Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1740-1830, ed. John Mee and Tom Keymer (Cambridge, 2004); "The Mad Scientist: The Creation of a Literary Stereotype" in Science and the Imagination, ed. Kevin Cope (AMS Press, 2004); "Wants and Goods: Advertisement and Desire in Haywood and Defoe" in SECC 2004, ed. Catherine Ingrassia and Jeffrey S. Ravel; "The Paradox of the Anthology: Collecting and Differénce in Eighteenth-Century Britain" in New Literary History 34:2 (Spring, 2003). She has given an invited lecture, "Daring to Laugh: Austen and Literary Jokes," at the "Daring Women, 1660-1830" Conference at the Noel Memorial Library in Shreveport, LA, March, 2004; she has presented "Self-Representations: Advertisement and Uncertainty in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey" at the MLA annual meeting in San Diego in December, 2003; and she is concluding her editing of Northanger Abbey for Cambridge University Press's Scholarly 9-volume edition of Austen's complete works, to be published in 2005.
Catherine Labio (Comparative Literature and French, Yale) has published "Reading by the Gold and Black Clock,or the Recasting of Bernardin de Saint Pierre's Paul et Virginie" in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 16 (July, 2004).
At the 2003 NEASECS Annual Meeting in Providence,John L. Mahoney(English, Boston College) delivered a lecture entitled "Walter Jackson Bate: The Humanist as Teacher/Scholar." This lecture has now been published in Religion and the Arts 8:1 (2004). Professor MahoneyÕs Wordsworth Memorial Lecture of1993, "Wordsworth: Religious Experience and Religious Practice," has recently been published by Rydal Church, Wordsworth's church in the Lake District.
Sylvia Kasey Marks (English, Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY) has published Writing for the Rising Generation:British Fiction for Young People 1672-1839 (University of Victoria, 2003).
Mary Ann O'Donnell(English/Dean of Arts, Manhattan College) has recently published the second edition of AphraBehn: An Annotated Bibliography of and Secondary Sources (Ashgate, 2004).
Deborah Ross (English, Hawaii Pacific University) has published "Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination" in Marvels and Tales (April, 2004).
Rose Zimbardo (English, Universityof San Francisco) has published Understanding The Lord of the Rings (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Professor Zimbardo chaired the 2004 annual meeting of the Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of San Francisco.