The Research Society for American Periodicals solicits proposals for papers on American periodicals and working class cultures to be delivered at the American Literature Association’s 23rd Annual Conference, 24-27 May 2012 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in Embarcadero Center.
Consider periodicals such as The Messenger (founded as the official organ for the Pullman Porter’s Union) to the Worker’s Daily – What role have periodicals played in forming and re-forming class consciousness among the working classes in the U.S.? What unique methodological challenges do working-class periodicals pose? How do working-class periodicals expand our understanding of readership and activism, labor and literary culture? How does literature or literary criticism in The Partisan Review or The New York Review of Books shape our understanding of the high-brow or low-brow audiences? What brow is the New Yorker, anyway? What are the challenges & possibilities for teaching material that concerns working class issues from highbrow sources? Conversely, what in various working class periodicals was designed explicitly or implicitly to teach? We seek submissions concerning any aspect of American working-class magazines, newspapers, or periodicals in any form.
Please send a one-page abstract submissions to Susanna Ashton at sashton [at] clemson.edu by *January 16th 2012. *
Please put “RSAP panel submission” in the subject line, thanks.