Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2017
Full name / name of organization: Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society.
Contact email: cmss.news@gmail.com
As we head toward the 150th anniversary of Catharine Sedgwick’s death and the 20th anniversary of the CMS Society in 2017, we invite proposals for the following panel for ALA 2017:

Session #1: TIME, MEMORIALS AND ANNIVERSARIES (3 or 4 15 to 20-minute papers):

How is “time” referenced in Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s writings? Does her sense of time seem consistent at moments with Wordsworth’s “spots of time”? Is there more that can be said about her “anachronistic imaginings,” to take a phrase from Jeffrey Insko’s 2004 essay, “Anachronistic Imaginings: Hope Leslie’s Challenge to Historicism?” What about her attention to memory, memorials, and monuments, and how space and visual culture relate to notions of time? What about anniversaries, rituals and annual or seasonal celebrations? This panel invites proposals on these and other issues related to the perception of time, the passage of time, and the celebration of times past in Sedgwick’s writings or the writings of her contemporaries.

I want to remind readers that the Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society is holding its 8th symposium in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, June 7-10, 2017, celebrating both the 150th anniversary of Sedgwick’s death and the 20th anniversary of the CMS Society. The focus for the symposium is “Where and When: Evolving Concepts of Place, Space, and Time in the Writings of Sedgwick and Her Contemporaries.” There is potential to have meaningful overlap between the May ALA panel and the June symposium. The Society asks that participants do not deliver exactly the same paper at both events but encourages work that connects papers between the different forums or initiates an ongoing conversation.

ALA will be held May 25-28, 2017 (Thursday to Sunday of Memorial Day weekend) at Westin Copley Place in Boston, MA.

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: January 15, 2017

Please send abstracts to Lisa West, V.P. for External Conferences, CMS Society: lisa.west@drake.edu