Romanticism and Parenting Conference
June 24th to June 26th, 2004
Stanford University

Proposal Deadline: January 15, 2004.

Email proposals (200-300 words) for papers, discussion groups, or workshops
to Christopher Rovee at [log in to unmask]

This small, discussion-centered conference will address parenthood in
history, literature, and the arts; the specific pleasures and pains of
professing the humanities as a parent; and the institutional significance
of the family in today's academy. Building on discussions initiated at the
first Romanticism and Parenting conference, organized by Elizabeth Fay and
held this past August in New York, this conference will combine discussions
of the historical contexts for parenting with first-hand accounts of the
way parenting (in all its forms) influences one's participation in the
academy. Sessions will include roundtable discussions, readings, and a
special workshop on the material culture of 18th- and 19th-century
childhood to be held in Stanford Library's Department of Special
Collections. Presentations that draw on personal experience in addressing
pedagogical and institutional issues are especially encouraged. Although
the historical center of the conference is the romantic period (with its
emphasis on childhood, education, imagination, the family politic),
presentations emerging from the study of other historical periods are
welcome.

The conference invites a variety of approaches. Some possible topics
include:

* representations of parents and parent-child relations
* forms of parental surrogacy in the 18th and 19th century
* adoption in literature; literary adoption
* parental figurations of authorship
* single parenting in literature
* same-sex parenting in literature
* runaways, child thieves, parentlessness
* theories and practices of education
* incest in literature
* where families gather: drawing rooms, dinner tables, ancestral galleries
* history of the (children's) book
* innocence and experience
* mourning lost children
* theories of child development
* pregnancy and abortion in the 18th and 19th century
* the family politic
* heterosexuality and political order in the 1790s
* historical contexts for current debates about marriage and the family
* how parenthood influences the understanding or teaching of specific poems
* bringing parenthood to the classroom: teaching as a parent
* career-planning and the family
* proposals for institutional change
* romantic poetry as moral instruction
* reading poems to children

This conference’s emphasis on discussion means that one need not give a
formal paper in order to participate. If you are interested in
participating as a discussant, please send (instead of a proposal) a
description of your specific interest(s) in the conference theme. This will
assist in the development of topics for roundtable discussions.

If you would like to participate in the library session on material
culture, you can search the Stanford's Special Collections catalog online
at http://www-sul.stanford.edu (follow link to Socrates). Alternatively,
simply describe your interest in your proposal and we can discuss various
possibilities.

Sessions will be scheduled early in the day to allow participants time to
enjoy the enormous range of activities in the Bay Area. We will offer group
outings focused on activities for children of all ages, and you are
therefore encouraged (though by no means obligated) to bring your family
along for the trip. However, as the first R&P meeting demonstrated, the
conference is not for parents only and benefits tremendously from a range
of perspectives.


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British Association for Romantic
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