CECS Day Conference

Sociability and Print Culture

9th November 2013 at the King's Manor

Plenary Speaker: Professor Gillian Russell (Australian National University)

This day conference investigates the complex relations between print and sociability in the long eighteenth century. Print was central to the functioning of sociability via tickets, broadsides, and the newspapers that advertised, policed, or promoted various kinds of public event. Religion, politics, and many other forms of public debate depended on the development of new forms of print circulation in the eighteenth century. Reading itself was often a deeply social experience, through the creation of community libraries or the various institutions that came into being to promote the discussion of books and print, not to mention the various forms of reading aloud. Bookshops themselves were a major sites of sociability where people gathered to talk and read. In these regards and others, print could even be said to have been the creative agent behind sociability rather than simply its instrument. Speakers at the conference will investigate all these issues and others that we hope will be the focus of lively debate from the floor.

Papers

Natasha Glaisyer (University of York): 'Printing fortunes: Eighteenth-century lottery tickets'

Mark Jenner (University of York): 'Print, Publicity and the Anti-Social: Selling Sanitary Services'

Emma Major (University of York): 'Anonymity and Sociability: Barbauld, pulpits and publics'

Jon Mee (University of York): 'Robert Thompson, Print Sociability, and the Laurel of Liberty'

Tom Mole (University of Edinburgh): 'Interpersonal Print'

Gillian Russell ( ANU):'"withinside": ephemeral print and sociability in the long eighteenth century'

Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool): 'Community Libraries: sociability and print in the Atlantic World'

Programme

9.30 - tea/ coffee

10.00 - opening remarks

10.15 - Natasha Glaisyer and Mark Jenner

11.30 - tea/ coffee

11.45 - Emma Major and Jon Mee

1.00 - lunch

2.15 - Tom Mole and Mark Towsey

3.30 - tea/ coffee

3.45 - Gillian Russell

Registration

External Delegates: the fee will be £14 + £1.49 processing charge.  Update: 4 November 2013: The conference is now full.

This payment includes tea, coffee and a simple sandwhich lunch. It does not include accommodation.

Members of the University of York: It is free to register.  Please email cecs1@york.ac.uk to secure your place. If you wish to have lunch, the charge is £5. Update: 4 November 2013: The conference is now full.