The Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society solicits proposals for two sessions to be presented at the 2024 American Literature Association Conference. The conference will take place May 23-26 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, Illinois. 

1. Sedgwick and her Contemporaries in Context

Despite her minimal formal education, Catharine Maria Sedgwick was highly self-educated and unusually well-read for a woman of her era. Her writings are rife with references to major bodies of knowledge—literature, history, philosophy, social science, art—which she employs strategically to contextualize her ideas. Her breadth of reading, as displayed through epigraphs, analogies, allusions, etc., establishes her as a writer with authority, one who is familiar with the long view of history, art, nature and the law, as well as the trends of her contemporary culture, both American and Transatlantic. How did Sedgwick and her contemporaries employ their learned references as a means of winning the confidence of educated readers? Were these references religious, classical, scientific, artistic, literary, political, philosophical? What weight did these contexts give to their writings?  What effect were they intended to produce? What affinities do these writers attempt to establish with their readers? Why were these contexts so important to 19^th-century audiences?

Please submit proposals of around 250 words to Maureen Tuthill (Maureen.tuthill@liu.edu) by January 23, 2024.

2. Sedgwick Workshop: Teaching Hope Leslie After Recovery

Nearly four decades have passed since recovery efforts began on Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s 1827 novel Hope Leslie; or Early Times in the Massachusetts.  Significant progress has been made in re-establishing Sedgwick’s place in the history of early American literature and affirming the pedagogical richness of teaching Hope Leslie to current generations of students. Given that Hope Leslie and Sedgwick herself are now officially recovered, what is next? How do we elevate our teaching approaches to Hope Leslie? Where does the novel intersect with the concerns of digital natives and the rising Generation Alpha? Which focal points and instructional approaches will keep Sedgwick alive in the 21^st-century American literary imagination?

This session will take the form of a workshop where presenters and attendees will work together to collect ideas and develop new strategies for teaching Hope Leslie. Those who wish to be listed in the ALA program as presenters should submit a teaching approach of around 100 words and a sample assignment to Maureen Tuthill (Maureen.tuthill@liu.edu) by January 23, 2024.