The following special sessions have been approved.  Unless otherwise noted, all abstracts will be due for consideration by June 1, 2007.  Those papers for which special session organizers do not find room on their panels will be submitted for consideration in the general pool.  Please contact the name listed with the session for any further information.

____Special Sessions_______________________________________

Theories of the Romantic Thing:  Romantic theory and philosophy focus much attention on the question of materiality or the status of the 'thing.'  Romanticism posits a variety of strategies to come to terms with "thingness," involving reflections on the relation between Subject and Object in the wake of Kant, the relation between human subjectivity and Nature or the Divine, and in general the problem of what we are to make of objective being.  This panel welcomes proposals for papers dealing with any theories of Romanticism and the thing.  Contact:  Bill Davis

Romanticism and the Physical Sciences. Contact: Mark Lussier

Abolition and British Romanticism:  The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain offers an important opportunity to consider the figure of the African and the slave as objects and subjects of discourse during the early Romantic period.  Abolition formed an essential component of Romantic writers' concern with the relationships among British citizens as well as those between the English and the rest of the world.  This panel seeks papers that discuss the relationship of abolition to Romanticism from a variety of viewpoints.  Contact:  L. Adam Mekler

The Material Text: Romantic Histories of the Book:  Papers invited on all aspects of book history and print culture, including authorship (forgery, plagiarism, anonymity, pseudonymity, etc.); reception (women readerships, children's literature, divergent literacies); production (periodical formats, histories of paper, materialist dimensions of the book); dissemination (the London book trade, rogue booksellers, provincial vendors, international shipping, etc.); and circulation (private collections, circulation libraries, political and theological pamphleteering). Contact:  Michael Macovski

Objections to Objects:  In addition to those writers who celebrated objects, there were those who, like Blake, considered "Corporeal Friends" to be "Spiritual Enemies," and therefore objected to what they believed to be a misplaced emphasis on objects.  In their defense, this session will focus on reactions against the growing emphasis on objects during the period.  Contact:  Sheila Spector

Romanticism and the Object of Pleasure:  This panel, a collaborative counterpart to Michelle Faubert's concurrent session for the 2007 meeting of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, seeks papers that interrogate the many objects and theories of Romantic pleasure and its effects.  Particularly, I am interested in papers that explore the variety of ways in which writers of the era theorize the cultural uses of pleasure, in the broadest construction of that phrase.  Contact: Tom Schmid

Letters, Luggage, and Other Travel Objects in Romantic Literature:  Papers are invited that address subjects of authors in travel within and beyond their native country, correspondence to and from authors, objects in travel, traveling menageries, and others that examine the impact of such travel on the poetry and prose of Romantic authors.  Contact:  Lisbeth Chapin

Historical Objects:  What makes Romantic objects Romantic?  Whether in literature or culture in general, how do things embody history in ways that characters or events do not?  What benefits accrue from teaching things?  How does our study of things in literature agitate and refresh our understanding of history and of texts?  Papers invited that consider some (or all) of these questions.  Contact:  Jillian Heydt-Stevenson

The Gothic Body as Romantic Object:  This panel explores the specific theme of the gothic body as it appears within what we term Romantic literature.  The panel thus attempts to provide a cohesive consideration of the interrelation of Romanticism and the Gothic, especially as concerns the uncanny appearance of the Gothic body in Romantic literature.  Contact:  Nowell Marshall or Kirsti Cole

Romantic Writers and Revolutionary Objects:  With the Bastille's fall in 1789, the decade of Revolution was underway.  While primarily a political movement, the French Revolution occurred during a time of burgeoning consumer culture.  This sessions seeks papers that explore how Romantic period writers used material objects to engage revolutionary ideas and further their political goals.  Contact:  Pamela Buck

Souvenir Objects/Romantic Souvenirs:  Is the souvenir an exemplary and/or a particularly Romantic object?  The OED dates the first use of souvenir as "a token of remembrance" to 1782.  Proposals welcomed on any type of souvenir object (tourist items, miniatures, locks of hair, replicas, gift-books, objects commemorating national events, etc.) and on any aspect of the souvenir in Romantic culture and cultural transmission.  Contact:  Eric Eisner