The department of English and comparative literature in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences will host the third biennial conference of C19: The Society for Nineteenth-Century Americanists from March 13 to 16.
C19 is the first academic organization dedicated to nineteenth-century American literary studies.
“It’s quite a coup,” says Jane F. Thrailkill, one of the conference hosts and Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Associate Professor. “UNC will have more than 400 top scholars of American literature, representing more than 200 universities, convening at our historic Carolina Inn.”
Co-host professor Eliza Richards notes that, “Ph.D. alumni from around the country are coming to town to participate in the event.”
Affirming a common commitment to excellence in the humanities, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt and Duke University President Richard Brodhead (himself a renowned scholar of American literature) are hoping to attend C19’s welcome reception as their men’s basketball teams head into ACC tournament weekend.
Participants will present new work on a range of topics, such as the Emily Dickinson digital archives, Civil War journalism, The Book of Mormon, and 19th-century environmental literature. A special session will honor the ground-breaking work of UNC’s own William L. Andrews, E. Maynard Adams Professor of English, who has discovered and published previously unknown writings by African-American slaves from the University’s archives.
The conference is sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences, the department of English and comparative literature, and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Commons,” which spotlights the importance of shared spaces in fostering communication, consensus and meaningful social protest in the nineteenth century and today. Honoring this important ideal, the program will feature three Carolina Commons sessions that are free and open to the public. Each session is located at important common sites on campus – The Ackland Museum, the Wilson Library, McCorkle Place – and will explore the history and scholarly possibilities of common spaces within the oldest public university in the United States.
Carolina Commons: Free Public Sessions:
Archiving the American South in the Wilson Library
Scholars including UNC Professors Heidi Kim and Eliza Richards will discuss their work in the archives. Displays will include diaries, letters, and business records of Southern U.S. slave owners, and Confederate women’s poetry written and published in the Civil War era.
Thursday, March 13th 2:45-4:15pm, Wilson Library (Pleasants Room)
Picturing the Landscape in the Nineteenth Century
Scholars will take advantage of the Ackland’s collections and discuss the ways in which artists negotiated the challenges of representing land in contexts of nationalist expansion, imperialism, and colonialism.
Saturday, March 15th 2:45-4:15pm, Ackland Art Museum
Memorializing Southern History: Slavery and the University
UNC Professors Tim Marr, Tim McMillan, and Reginald Hildebrand will discuss two monuments – “Silent Sam” and the “Unsung Founders” memorial – which stand juxtaposed on the old quad.
Saturday, March 15th 4:30-6:00pm, Hyde Hall, Institute of Arts & Humanities
For more information, visit http://as.vanderbilt.edu/c19/.
