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).