The 18th DNS Seminar

The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ANZSECS) and the Australian Catholic University invite you to the 18th David Nichol Smith (DNS) Seminar for Eighteenth-Century Studies.*

In 2022, the DNS will be held on 7-9 December at the ACU Fitzroy Campus of ACU in Melbourne. The meeting will convene in-person. We are delighted to announce that the seminar will include three keynotes: Lynette Russell, ARC Laureate Professor at Monash University; Kevin Dawson, Associate Professor of History at UC Merced; and Miranda Stanyon, ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. We are pleased, furthermore, to be developing ‘Eighteenth-Century Oceanities,’ a digital gallery of invited oceanic micro-talks from colleagues around the world. The gallery, which will be hosted on this website, will be available to colleagues unable to join us in Fitzroy, as well as to those who are. 

Our call for papers, details whereof are available below, closed on 15 August. Thank you to our many and marvellous submitters!

Registration for the conference can be completed via the ‘Registration’ and ‘Registration Payment’ tabs on this website. Presenters, please register by 10 October. Non-presenting attendees, we welcome your registration at any time; we gently stress, however, that places at the conference dinner at Ladro on 9 December are likely to fill up before the meeting begins. 

 

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As with previous DNS conferences, we aim to pursue a publication of some work arising from the seminar. We are already in talks with two interested publishers.

Convenors: Kristie Flannery, Kate Fullagar, Killian Quigley

Australian Catholic University, dns.xviii@gmail.com

https://dnsxviii2022.org

 

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CFP (now closed):

All non-themed papers will be welcomed and considered, though a preference will be given to talks that fit the very broadly defined topic of ‘The Marine Worlds of the Long Eighteenth Century.’ We seek to explore and understand the experiences, knowledges, and spaces of oceanic, submarine, and more widely watery worlds from 1650 to 1850. We are particularly keen to highlight and interrogate how the ‘blue humanities,’ and the environmental humanities in general, are in conversation with the study of the eighteenth century across disciplines.

Topics may include but are definitely not confined to:

  • Eighteenth-century voyaging
  • oceanic lives: Indigenous, Black, gendered, plebeian, mercantile, imperial
  • human-animal relationships in eighteenth-century oceans
  • more-than-human oceans
  • ideas and practices exploring ocean depths and sea surfaces
  • queering the eighteenth-century ocean
  • feminist, subaltern, or decolonial knowledges of the marine
  • seacraft design and representation
  • maritime wrecks, disasters, and salvage operations
  • reinterpretations of piracy and seaborne conflict
  • marine and maritime labours, both free and unfree
  • sensing seascapes: sights, sounds, tastes, and smells
  • marine genres / oceanic forms
  • aquatic sports, leisure, and culture
  • relations between eighteenth-century studies and the blue humanities
  • marine geographies, or ‘thalassographies,’ in formation, relation, and conflict
  • philosophies and practices of sub/marine science
  • sea-languages of the long eighteenth century
  • submergence, diving, and drowning
  • marine worlds of coast and shores
  • Brackish or freshwater counter-stories to the marine
  • objects, things, and oceanic materialisms
  • marine memories, testimonies, and archives

HOW TO SUBMIT

We are seeking proposals for panels, workshops, and roundtables (see below). We are happy to help prospective applicants make connections between people in order to form or participate in a session. If this proves impossible, we will of course then accept a 200-word abstract for an individual paper. We are pleased to offer some travel bursaries to postgraduate students or unemployed scholars to assist in the cost of travel to Melbourne. If you would like to be considered for a travel grant, please indicate so in your proposal and include a three-page CV.

Please email proposals to dns.xviii@gmail.com by Monday, 15th August 2022 

VARIETIES OF SESSION:

Panel of 90 minutes – 4 x 15 minute papers with a chair. Please submit a proposal with a title that covers your broad topic, the name and email of the main correspondent for the panel, the names of the four speakers, and 4×100-word abstracts (one for each prospective paper). You are welcome also to include a chair, or we can arrange one for you.

Panel of 60 minutes – 2 x 15 minute papers with a commentator. Please submit a proposal with a title that covers your broad topic, the name and email of the main correspondent for the panel, the names of the two speakers, and 2×100-word abstracts (one for each prospective paper). Please also arrange for a commentator who will reflect for 10 minutes on the paired papers.

Workshop of 60 minutes – this will involve group discussion of 2 x pre-circulated new works-in-progress. Please submit a proposal with a title, the name and email of the main correspondent for the workshop, and the names of the two scholars who will pre-circulate their article/chapter-length drafts for discussion, as well as a 100-word abstract for each. You are welcome also to include a chair-discussant, or we can arrange one for you.

Roundtable of 90 or 60 minutes – this has an open format but must include only short talks by participants that all speak to a central question or issue within the field of eighteenth-century marine studies. Please submit a proposal with a title that signals the key problem, a 200-word abstract for the roundtable, the name and email of the main correspondent/moderator for the roundtable, and the names of all the other participants.

 

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*Inaugurated in 1966 by the National Library of Australia, the DNS is the leading forum for eighteenth-century studies in Australasia. It brings together scholars from across the region and internationally who work on the long eighteenth century in a range of disciplines, including history, literature, Indigenous studies, art and architectural history, philosophy, theology, the history of science, musicology, anthropology, archaeology and studies of material culture.