The Late Eighteenth-Century Division Committee will sponsor three sessions at the next MLA Convention. Below is a call for papers for one of these sessions.
"Historicizing the Text"
This session calls for papers whose interests are grounded in the materialities of the book, pamphlet, broadside or manuscript. Topics might include (but are not limited to): semiotics of the physical object and its paratexts (title-page, preface, epigraph, etc.); sociology of the text, inc. gender issues; author-function and implied author as derived from or deconstructed by the physical text; anonymity and pseudonymity; attribution and canon issues; continuations and sequels; epistemology of reading; theoretical implications of the material text for author and
period studies.