Margaret Fuller and Her Circles
April 8-10, 2010

Since her rediscovery in the 1970s as a major intellectual figure, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) has become central to a striking new account of antebellum literature, history, and culture. Her significance as a writer and public intellectual in the 1830s and 1840s in New England, New York, and Europe has become visible even as a new understanding of this formative period in American culture has emerged among scholars; indeed, her work has helped to drive the emergence of this new understanding. Antebellum culture resulted from an extraordinary convergence of literary, social, and political re-imaginings with both national and transnational implications. As a Transcendentalist, translator, feminist theorist, book reviewer, teacher, literary journal editor, surveyor of reform institutions, traveler, journalist, political activist in the 1848 European revolutions, and foreign correspondent, Fuller was one of the central figures of this formative period in U.S. history and one of those who most fully articulated its meanings.

The Massachusetts Historical Society will recognize the 200th anniversary of Fuller’s birth with a conference on her life and work. Presentations will include a keynote address by Professor Mary Kelley of the University of Michigan and four sessions devoted to the discussion of pre-circulated papers. Aside from the keynote speaker, presenters will not deliver their papers aloud but will take part in the discussion of their work.

Preliminary Program

Thursday, April 8

Keynote Address 6:00-7:00 P.M.
Mary Kelley, University of Michigan, "The Measure of My Footprint": Margaret Fuller's Unfinished Revolution

Reception 7:00-8:00 P.M.

Friday, April 9

Registration 9:00-9:45 A.M.

Welcome 9:45 A.M.
Dennis A. Fiori, Massachusetts Historical Society
Conrad Edick Wright, Massachusetts Historical Society

Fuller and Women 10:00 A.M.-Noon
Dorri R. Beam, University of California—Berkeley, Fuller, Women Writers, and Feminist Pantheism
Phyllis Cole, Penn State—Brandywine, Fuller's Lawsuit and Feminist History
John Matteson, John Jay College, CUNY, "Woes . . . of Which We know Nothing": Fuller and the Problem of Feminine Virtue

Chair: Bell Gale Chevigny, Purchase College, SUNY
Comment: Joel Myerson, University of South Carolina

Lunch (on your own) Noon-2:00 P.M.

Fuller and Antebellum Movements 2:00-4:00 P.M.
David Robinson, Oregon State University, Fuller and Associationism
Adam-Max Tuchinsky, University of Southern Maine, American Socialism and Margaret Fuller's 1848

Chair: Helen Deese, Tennessee Technological University
Comment: Charles Capper, Boston University

Saturday, April 10

Registration 9:00-10:00 A.M.

Fuller and Urban Culture 10:00 A.M.-Noon
Megan Marshall, Emerson College, Margaret Fuller on "Music's Everlasting Yes": A Romantic Critic in the Romantic Era
Jeffrey Steele, University of Wisconsin, Title to be announced
Robert Hudspeth, Claremont Graduate University, Margaret Fuller and the Experience of Urban Life

Chair: Susan Belasco, University of Nebraska
Comment: Brigitte Bailey, University of New Hampshire

Lunch (on your own) Noon

The Transatlantic Fuller 2:00-4:00 P.M.
John Davis, University of Connecticut, Margaret Fuller and the Risorgimento

Chair: Joan von Mehren, author of Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller
Comment: Larry Reynolds, Texas A & M University

Registration

Please register online via our Blackbaud affiliate. The fees are:

$75 for regular registration
$50 for student registration

You may also send registration to:

Margaret Fuller Conference
Massachusetts Historical Society
1154 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02215

Please send the following information:

Name___________________________
Affiliation________________________
Address_________________________
       _________________________
E-mail___________________________
Phone___________________________

The papers under discussion at this conference will be available at the Society’s website approximately one month before the program.