North American Society for the Study of Romanticism

Romanticism's Commons names a field for which we hope to solicit contributions to current studies in Romanticism from a transdisciplinary array of scholarly approaches and perspectives. This theme also resonates with and builds on those of previous NASSR conferences, like those focusing on mediations, openness, and technology, among others.

In everyday speech, "common" connotes something of sharing, and something of averageness; in the everyday speech of the long 19th century, the word also familiarly confers pejorative judgment on sharing or averageness deemed crude, inappropriate, promiscuous, and/or conspicuously gender-coded (as in patriarchy's figure of a "common woman”). In legal discourse, the commons names territory or space that is publicly shared and accessed, de-propertized, or otherwise not privately enclosed. During the Romantic period, common lands continued to be enclosed or privatized by the ever-encroaching and -expanding private interests of industrial capital. Analogously, scholars and critics of intellectual property (IP) in the digital age argue that a new wave of enclosures now proceeds by way of increasingly strict and punitive copyright and other IP laws; these new enclosures threaten other kinds of cultural and archival commons, like the "public domain"--the cultural commons comprised of works whose copyrights have expired, forming a shared heritage and repertoire for new cultural production.

"Common" also means a myriad things for other discourses, etymologically, historically, and interculturally. NASSR invites scholars of Romantic-period literature and culture to consider our theme's keywords in relation to your own researches, and to come together for a conversation about Romanticism's commons, however theorized or reimagined.

Understood in the broadest terms possible, research on "Romanticism's commons" can encompass topics like (but not limited to) the following:

• Romanticism's digital commons(es)
• speaking in common tongues
• "commonties" (Hogg): etymologies, dicourses, genealogies
• gendering, classing, and/or sexing what's "common"
• common Romanticism in pop culture
• law, property, intellectual property: from enclosures to new enclosures
• Romantic literature(s) and public domain(s)
• common grounds: discourses and praxis of solidarity discourses
• common knowledge(s), (un)common sense

For updates on the conference, please visit the dedicated conference website: https://landing.athabascau.ca/pages/view/23452548/nassr-conference-2025-online-romanticism%E2%80%99s-commons 

Keynote Speakers 

Dr Shelby Johnson, Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma State U. Dr Johnson is the author of The Rich Earth Between Us: The Intimate Grounds of Race and Sexuality in the Atlantic World, 1770-1830 (U of North Carolina P, 2024); and

Dr Joseph Albernaz, Assistant Professor of English & Comparative Literature at Columbia U, author of Common Measures: Romanticism and the Groundlessness of Community (Stanford UP, 2024).

Conference organizers are open to various forms of proposal

Traditional proposals for 15-20-minute papers (250-word abstracts) submitted by individual NASSR members to the conference organizers.

Proposals for complete panels, special sessions, caucus sessions (with the roster of committed speakers and affiliations) for three 20-minute or four 15-minute papers (250-word abstracts for each paper accompanied by a cover letter describing the aims of the panel as a whole). All papers are subject to vetting by the organizing committee.

If you are interested in proposing a panel but are looking for participants, we encourage you to advertise your topic by sending an email to [email protected] or [email protected].

Proposals for roundtables: please provide a description of the roundtable topic, including a title, with a list of committed panelists (with affiliations). Please note that the maximum number of roundtable members, including the chair, is six (6).

The deadline for all submissions (paper proposals, complete panels/special sessions/caucus sessions, and roundtables) is February 14, 2025.

Please send all submissions, together with a one-page CV -- and/or direct questions -- to the NASSR 2025 conference committee, chaired by Mark A. McCutcheon, at [email protected]

All submissions must include your name, academic affiliation, and preferred email address.

NASSR Advisory Board Statement on Audio-Visual Presentations:

NASSR recognizes the value of audio-visual presentations to the work of its conferees, especially those engaged in multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and digitally oriented projects.  Such presentations, however, occasion significant logistical and financial challenges for conference organizers. The NASSR Board, therefore, asks conferees to request audio-visual setups only when they are needed to communicate a substantive component of a project (e.g. displaying quotations would not meet this standard). Conferees can expect organizers to (1) appoint a designated contact person to whom all AV requests should be made (as opposed, for example, to session chairs), and (2) present clear deadlines before which AV requests must be made and after which AV should not be expected.

The NASSR Con ’25 organizing committee at Athabasca U is chaired by Prof. Mark A. McCutcheon (Literary Studies) and includes Profs. Jolene Armstrong (Comparative Literature), David Buchanan (Literary Studies) and Frits Pannekoek (History).

NASSR Statement on Virtual Conferencing

As NASSR members are aware, the NASSR Board passed a motion in 2022 that all future NASSR conferences would have some virtual component. This commitment was made in light of several concerns with in-person only events, including the carbon emissions resulting from air travel, uneven accessibility, and total cost of attendance (as virtual attendance enables savings on travel and accommodations), amongst other matters. To repeat what we said in our earlier announcement of this position, “We do not envision any particular solution to the complexities of bringing a virtual element into NASSR conferences; the approach in each case will depend on the decisions of conference organizers in response to the specific opportunities and constraints that they face.”

All conference organizers are free to decide on what form the virtual aspect of their conferences will take according to the host universities’ needs, technical capabilities, and financial situations. Conference attendees are reminded that virtual conferencing cannot be the equivalent of in-person conferencing; some of the benefits of the in-person meeting will always be lost and the limitations will be many. Technological support for virtual participation is also expensive, further limiting what organisers can accomplish on this front. However, the benefits are also clear and NASSR is committed to supporting members for whom in-person attendance is impossible or highly problematic. We ask that NASSR members keep these challenges in mind if they opt for virtual participation and remember that conference organization for our society is voluntary, unpaid work by people who most often do not have expertise in virtual-event hosting.

Like many other scholarly associations, NASSR welcomes and appreciates donations from those members who are in the position to make them. As with all revenue generated by NASSR, donations will be used for a number of worthy causes, including supporting graduate student travel, supporting conference organisers, compensating student RAs, and contributing to awards and prizes. There are no salaried workers at NASSR; all Board members are volunteers. As such, 100% of your donation is invested in the Society.  

The Editors and Board of European Romantic Review are delighted to share with NASSR members our efforts to reduce the journal’s carbon imprint from 2024 onwards by adjusting our printing schedule. NASSR members can continue to rely upon the journal’s high standards and coverage, in terms of articles and book reviews available to NASSR members, but the journal will appear as a quarterly in recognition of the need to lessen the journal’s printing and mailing impacts. NASSR members will still receive the journal seamlessly as one feature of their membership in NASSR, and can expect the issues to appear in March, June, September, and December of 2024. Book reviews will appear in issue 1 (March) and the NASSR conference (issue 3, September). Members are invited to send their books for review to William Brewer.

The Frederick Burwick Article Prize (formerly called the ERR-NASSR Essay Prize) will continue to be awarded annually. 

European Romantic Review can be accessed online. 

ERR is pleased to publish conference issues, developed from the annual NASSR conference, as well as special issues, such as recent ones dedicated to Robert Bloomfield and to Maria Edgeworth. We are also pleased to publish themed issues, such as Women and Protest. Enquiries about special issues should be directed to the co-editors.

In 2004, NASSR and European Romantic Review instituted an annual prize for the best essay published in European Romantic Review.  Each competition considers all of the essays published in that year's volume of ERR.

Winning articles can be accessed freely here. 

Submitted manuscripts must comply with the MLA Style Manual and, to facilitate anonymous peer review, should indicate the author’s name only on a cover sheet. Submissions should be made through the "Manuscript Central" (or "Scholar One") system accessible at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gerr. This website includes detailed directions to guide authors through each step; the co-editors remain available to answer questions at [email protected] or [email protected]. Book reviews are commissioned and mostly multi-book reviews; inquiries about reviews may be directed to the Book Review Editor at [email protected]. Tables of contents for recent issues are available through the Taylor & Francis website.

Editors' Addresses:

Consulting Editor:

Regina Hewitt | English Dept. | University of South Florida | Tampa, FL | USA 33620 

Co-Editors:
Benjamin Colbert | Department of Humanities| Housman Bldg. | University of Wolverhampton  | Camp St. | Wolverhampton | WV1 1AD UK
Lucy Morrison | Kayser 208 | University of Nebraska at Omaha | 6001 Dodge Street | Omaha, NE 68182 USA

Review Editor:
William D. Brewer | Department of English | ASU Box 32052 | Sanford Hall | 225 Locust Street | Appalachian State University | Boone, NC 28608 | U.S.A.

Editorial Board:

Christoph Bode
Angela Esterhammer
Jeffrey Cox
Joel Faflak
Timothy Fulford
Kelly Grovier
Susan Gustafson
Raimonda Modiano
Robert Morrison
Cecilia Powell
Tilottama Rajan
Alan Richardson
Lisa Vargo
Joseph Viscomi
Alexandra Wettlaufer

International Advisory Board:

William Christie
Lilla Maria Crisafulli
Rosa E. Penna
Marc Poree
Malabika Sarkar
Grant Scott
Gerold Sedlmayr
Kasahara Yorimichi     

NASSR offers a three-year membership option at both the reduced, graduate student (or impermanent position/unwaged/retired) rate and at the regular rate--that is, $135 USD and $195 USD, respectively. As with annual memberships, you will receive a renewal reminder when your account is about to expire. Beyond duration, multi-year membership is identical to annual membership in all ways.

In an effort to offer more financial help to under-supported members of NASSR, we invite people to consider donating to the Precariously Employed Scholar Fund. This fund is intended to support graduate students as well as instructors with precarious or no employment (eg. post-doctoral students, adjunct professors, unwaged, and independent scholars) to attend NASSR conferences and to defray costs of events/sessions at the conference organized to support these members.

The fund was established by vote of the Advisory Board and Executive Council in 2018.

Please note: a donation to this fund does not include a NASSR membership. 

All NASSR members will receive the NASSR Newsletter, information about NASSR conferences, access to the Members Directory, access to Discussion Forums, and a subscription to the interdisciplinary journal European Romantic Review (published by Routledge).  

To join NASSR and pay your NASSR dues, please create an account by filling out the information requested on this page, below, and clicking the "Continue to PayPal" button. Use this account to access member-only content, such as the forums and member directory. Membership is valid until 31 December of the year in which it is purchased. Three-year memberships are valid for the year in which they are purchased and two subsequent years, terminating also on 31 December of the third year. 

Once your account is created and dues are paid, you will receive reminders via email to renew in the future. To ensure you receive these reminders, please opt in to receiving email when you're setting up your account. (If you have already created your account, you can opt in at any time).

It is possible to create an account and be designated a "supporter" without being a member proper. To become a member, one must pay the membership dues via this site. So, if you believe you have signed up but cannot access the members-only content, this may be the issue.

To renew your account rather than create a new account, you can either follow the link in any reminder email or simply add your name, email, etc. into the Join page; payment will be applied to your existing account. 

Members of the Gesellschaft für Englische Romantik and the Japan Association of English Romanticism are invited to contact NASSR in order to secure complimentary membership. 

Options and Rates:

One-year NASSR Membership:

• Full time waged (eg. assistant, associate, full professor): $65 USD
• Part time (un- or partial waged) (eg. postgraduate/retired/part-time or impermanent position/unwaged): $45 USD
• Please scroll down to make your purchase. 

Three-Year NASSR membership:

• $135 USD and $195 USD.
• Please click here for the three-year membership option. 

If you have any questions about membership, please contact Chris Bundock

Please consider an additional DONATION to NASSR. 

Like many other scholarly associations, NASSR welcomes and appreciates donations from those members who are in the position to make them. As with all revenue generated by NASSR, donations will be used for a number of worthy causes, including supporting graduate student travel, supporting conference organisers, compensating student RAs, and contributing to awards and prizes. There are no salaried workers at NASSR; all Board members are volunteers. As such, 100% of your donation is invested in the Society.