The past two years of in-person ASECS meetings were pretty stressful for me. Being around a lot of people, esp c18 scholars, used to be a great joy, so I was sad to feel so drained and frantic in Baltimore and St. Louis. #ASECS2024 in Toronto felt like a new kind of joyfulness and warmth, more even than before. I got to talk to several grad students and ECSs for whom it felt productive and encouraging, rather than intimidating and even vicious, which it so often used to be.
Too much ASECS to report on, but a highlight for me was that Jen Camden and JoEllen DeLucia snuck in an entire theory of the gothic (short version: self-conscious play, not "derivative") in their paper at my Editing Out-of-Circulation Novels roundtable.
@ASECS I just received an email that chirp.social, which hosts the ASECS (American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) group, is shutting down. I am creating a replacement group at @asecs . If you follow @asecs, it should provide the same functionality: When you tag the group, everyone in the group should see the post
How do we continue to engage students with the 18thC in innovative ways? All aspects of pedagogy are welcome for poster presentations that cover an entire course or focus on a particular element of a course.
Brief presentations (5 min) will be followed by time for conversation. Speakers on panels or roundtables are also welcome to participate.