Call for Proposals for the 46th Annual Conference of the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association in New Orleans.

Keynote Address by Dr. Michelle Foa (Art History, Tulane University): “No distance should be considered great anymore except the ocean”: Degas in New Orleans on Transatlantic Travel, Trade, and Transport

If America were a melting pot, New Orleans would be its capital. Even before the United States gained control of the city with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans had been usurped from indigenous peoples and changed hands several times between the French and Spanish. This amalgamation of inhabitants created complex and fascinating fusions of people, culture, language, food, music, and systems of belief which have become ubiquitous within the city’s history and its identity. Throughout the 19th century, New Orleans had the second-largest port in the United States, contributing to a steady stream of visitors, migrants, enslaved people, and new settlers that spread throughout the South and the quickly expanding nation. New Orleans is also renowned for its strategic importance during the various rebellions, skirmishes, and wars of the long 19th century. The city’s resilience is evident in the many economic alterations made over the last two hundred years and its ability to recover from man-made and natural events like slave rebellions, race riots, outbreaks of yellow fever, and hurricanes. Despite many moments of trepidation about the city’s future, it remains today a dynamic fusion of past and present that exemplifies the diversity of the US and the growing global intersections between nations which define the 19th century on a worldwide scale.

This call welcomes proposals for papers of 15-20 minutes in length from a broad range of disciplines and perspectives that explore the literal, figural, and abstract understanding of the notion of fusion or fusions in the long-nineteenth century, particularly those of culture, time, and space. Topics might include the fusion of people through forced or voluntary migration through the lens of the literary, historical, art historical, musical, or biological. Papers may engage in critical discussions of food or music, performance or play as aesthetic fusions of culture. Temporal fusions might be explored through the study of science (both factual and fictional), the supernatural, material and materiality, liminality, spiritualism, mysticism, or voodoo. Submissions could consider spatial fusions through the lens of micro- or macro- economics, architecture, landscape, geographical boundaries and borders, or the vast expanse of outer space. Papers might also consider pedagogical fusions, fusions of disciplines, fusions of theoretical perspectives, or other abstract understandings of the theme. Finally, papers might explore instances where fusion is conspicuously absent.

We also encourage proposals for various types of conference engagements beyond the standard panel presentation of papers including, but not limited to: round table discussions, “speed-dating” sessions, poster sessions, creative and/or practical workshops, fireside chats, panels which combine both research and practice etc.

Submit 250-word paper, panel, and alternative-session proposals with 2-page CVs via this google form by September 30, 2024.

Abstracts are due by September 30. Please see the conference website for more information: https://ncsaweb.net/2025-conference-information/