I’m very excited that my panel for the Samuel Richardson Society will be included at the 2015 ASECS Annual Meeting in LA! Proposal below.
“New Directions in Epistolary Studies” (Roundtable) (Samuel Richardson Society) Rachael Scarborough King, Dept. of English,
U. of California, Santa Barbara, Mail Code 3170, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3170; Tel: (646) 508-4162;
E-mail: rking@english.ucsb.edu
Recent work on eighteenth-century epistolarity has often taken a materialist bent, but interest in the epistolary novel—the focus of much post-structuralist and/or feminist criticism—also remains strong. This roundtable brings together these trends to look anew at Samuel Richardson’s use of the letter genre. Presentations could address, among other topics, mid-eighteenth century letter-writing practice; earlier and later epistolary fictions; other forms of epistolary print in circulation; British and global postal systems; neglected areas of Richardson’s oeuvre such as Letters Written to and for Particular Friends or his output as a printer; or the field of epistolary studies in relationship to (or against) Richardson. Overall, we will consider Richardson’s
outsized role in scholarly considerations of eighteenth-century letters and letter writing.