Revolutionary Texts in a Digital Age:

Thomas Paine’s Publishing Networks, Past and Present

Hosted by Iona College and the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies

New Rochelle, New York

                October 11th – 13th, 2018

While scholars of Early America are often careful to avoid anachronism, we are living in a moment of profound contemporary connections with communication networks of the past. In the Age of Revolutions, the creation and dissemination of information cultivated and complicated shifts in political ideology, commercial practices, and imperial infrastructure. Questions of access in these networks, of who can create information, who can circulate and commodify it, and on what terms, directly intersects with ongoing explorations of textual transformation in digital studies. In the intersection of historical, literary, legal, and bibliographic studies, the process of digital scholarship can shed new light on the traditional narrative of political publishing in the late eighteenth century.

The Third International Conference of Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College seeks to build an interdisciplinary program in which the links – and ruptures – between late eighteenth century and twenty first century media, particularly digital publishing and archive development, social media, resource accessibility, author attribution software, and information technology, are explored. The organizers welcome presentations on a wide range of subjects, either as individual papers or pre-formed panels, with a particular focus on Paine and his social network, as well as local, national, geographic, and imperial networks, borderlands, political discourses, knowledge formation from religious, scientific, and environmental perspectives, as well as digital pedagogy, digital research, archive management, and information sciences. Discussions of the relationship between these subjects and race, gender, class, and indigeneity are particularly encouraged, as are papers that focus on New York state history and Thomas Paine Studies.

ABD graduate students, junior, and senior scholars are invited to apply from any disciplinary background. Please include a 250-word prospectus and a one-page curriculum vitae together in one pdf document labeled with the applicant’s last name, with your name, paper title, affiliation (if applicable), and email address at the top of the first page of the proposal. Conference presentations will be limited to twenty minutes, and alternative session styles, including round tables, lightening talks, or posters are welcomed. Participants may receive some financial support for travel and lodging expenses. Applicants should e-mail their proposals to ITPS@iona.edu by February 1^st, 2018.