ASECS Annual Meeting Registration Now Open!

Visit: https://asecsannual2020.dryfta.com/buy-tickets/register/tickets

You may also print off a copy of the registration form and mail it into the ASECS Office.

You can find the registration form here:

https://static.wixstatic.com/ugd/acf0d2_7e39e888617c475ea663a7f6215635c3.pdf

ASECS 2020 Registration Information

(also available via pdf here: https://static.wixstatic.com/ugd/acf0d2_dfb9b93983f94dcd9b3a916bb7dde3c0.pdf)

We are looking forward to the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, which will be held 18-21 March 2020 at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch. Here is information to assist you in planning for your participation in the Meeting – to say nothing of the special events that have been organized!

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION

You may register online at https://asecsannual2020.dryfta.com/buy-tickets/register/tickets or download a print copy of the registration form at https://static.wixstatic.com/ugd/acf0d2_a35e7aefc3454e65bfae4314e89e50cd.pdf. Early bird registration will close on Friday, 1 March 2020 and online registration will no longer be available. In-person registration will begin at the Registration Desk at the Hyatt Regency as of 5:30 pm on Wednesday, 18 March 2020.

SPECIAL EVENTS (advance registration or purchase required)

Pre-Conference Workshop: Introduction to Saint Louis Art Museum Eighteenth-Century Collections

The pre-conference workshop will consist of dialogues among curators, field experts, and attendees on topics including global encounter, intermateriality, politics of empire, social histories, production processes, and curating the eighteenth century. These conversations will be held in the galleries in front of highlights such as colonial silver, European porcelain, Chinese bronzes and exportware, Peruvian textiles, and paintings including John Greenwood’s Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam (c.1752–58) and François-André Vincent’s Arria and Paetus (1784). The event will include the opportunity to study works from storage rarely on view and to visit the Print Study Room.

Scholars and curators of all disciplines are invited to register. As numbers are limited due to spatial constraints, please apply by sending a brief email describing your interest, along with any questions you may have, to eighteenthcenturyatslam@gmail.com by 31 December 2019. Confirmed participants will be contacted by the workshop organizers, Amy Torbert (Saint Louis Art Museum) and Brittany Luberda (Baltimore Museum of Art), by 20 January 2020.

The workshop will be held at the Museum on Wednesday, 18 March 2020, 1:00–5:00 pm. Participants must arrange their own transportation. The Museum is a 30-minute drive from the airport and a 20-minute drive from the hotel. Contact information will be provided to the participants to facilitate sharing of Uber, Lyft or other transportation.

Pierre Marivaux’s “The Triumph of Love” (fully staged production)

In Marivaux's 1732 comedy of intrigue, gender confusion, and love, Spartan princess Léonide is determined to give her throne, inherited from her usurper father, to its rightful possessor, Agis. But Agis is the ward of the austere rationalist philosopher Hermocrate, who resides with his sister, the scientist Léontine, in a secluded country home where they pursue knowledge, far away from the distractions of the social world. When Léonide sees Agis and falls for him, she resolves to use every wile and weapon of the heart to overcome the obstacles in her way.

The Triumph of Love is a co-production of the Performing Arts Department of Washington University and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Performances, in an English translation by James Magruder, will take place at the .Zack Theatre, 3224 Locust Street, St. Louis, MO 63103, on Friday and Saturday, 20 & 21 March at 8 pm and Sunday, 22 March at 2 pm.

ASECS has reserved all 275 seats at the .Zack Theatre for Friday night’s performance. Tickets are $20/$10 and may be purchased until 1 March. Thereafter, unsold tickets will be released for general sale and will be available at the door for $20 only.

ASECS has reserved a limited number of seats at the $20/$10 rate for the Saturday night and Sunday matinee performances. Tickets for these dates also are available at the box office at the $20 rate.

A staged reading of Le Triomphe de l’Amour in the original French will be presented by members of ASECS at the Hyatt Regency on Thursday during the 2:30 and 4:15 pm breakout sessions. The second session will include time for discussion.

The production of The Triumph of Love has been organized for the Annual Meeting by Pannill Camp, Washington University, and Annelle Curulla, Scripps College.

Guided Tour of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

Cahokia was the most influential urban settlement of the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies more than 1,000 years before European contact. Cahokia Mounds is the largest and most complex archaeological site in the United States.

On Sunday, 22 March, ASECS has arranged transportation and a guided tour with John Kelly, emeritus professor at Washington University. Professor Kelly will relate the tour to the eighteenth-century utilization of the site by the indigenous peoples such as the Illinois, French, and Americans.

A bus to Cahokia Mounds will depart the Hyatt Regency Sunday at 8:30 am and return by 11:30 am. The cost of the tour and transportation is $25 per person.

A minimum of 40 tickets must have been purchased by 1 March for the tour to take place. If the tour is canceled, refunds will be provided after the Annual Meeting. If extra tickets remain, they may be purchased at the Registration Desk.

If you are unable to join the tour, you can still visit the important site: Cahokia Mounds is open Wednesday-Sunday, with a recommended donation of $7.00 per person. For more information, visit https://cahokiamounds.org/.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

The Annual James L. Clifford Lecture will be given by Anne Lafont, University of East Paris/Marne-la-Vallée. Her talk, “Winckelmann Congo: Blackness in the Age of White Marble,” will take place in a plenary session at 11:30 am on Saturday.

The BSECS/ASECS Exchange speaker will be Brycchan Carey, Northumbria University. His presentation, “Devotional Duty, Scientific Practice, and Literary Genre: The Reverends Gilbert White and Griffith Hughes Write Natural History,” will be given on Friday morning (time TBA). It will be followed by a roundtable session that will continue discussion of the topic.

ASECS President Jeffrey Ravel, MIT, will give the Presidential Address on Friday, following the Awards Ceremony and Business Meeting at 2:00 pm. His talk is entitled “On the Playing Cards of Citizen Dulac in the Year II.”

The Doctor is In will be offering drop-in or by-appointment mentoring for all ASECS members. The mentoring help desk will be open Friday 9:00 am –2:30 pm and Saturday 9:00–11:30 am and 12:30–4:00 pm. For more information: https://doctorisinblog.wordpress.com; docisin18c@gmail.com; Twitter @TheDoctorisin8.

The Doctor is In Coffee Hour(s) with the Graduate Student Caucus: Saturday, 9:00–10:30 AM. All graduate students are invited to attend an informal, 15–20-minute roundtable with a small group of mentors. After the roundtable, graduate students will have the opportunity to speak to mentors and roundtable participants in a group setting.

The elected ASECS officers (President Jeffrey Ravel, First Vice-President William Warner and Second Vice-President Rebecca Messbarger) would like to hear from you! They will be holding Officers’ Office Hours on Thursday, 19 March, 1-2:30 pm. Please share your ideas and suggestions for the next 50 years of ASECS.

After-hours game room! A quiet social space/game room that will feature board games, eighteenth-century themed and beyond. Contact organizer Emily Friedman at ecf0004@auburn.edu for more information.

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAMS

A draft of the schedule will be made available on the Meeting website in early December and updated periodically. The final version will be posted in .pdf format in late February.

Printed programs will be provided to Meeting registrants in St. Louis. If you will not be attending the Meeting, you may order a printed copy of the program for $5.00 plus shipping. Please contact the Business Office for more information.

MEAL AND EVENT RESERVATION DEADLINE

The deadline for purchasing meal tickets in advance is 1 March 2020. If tickets remain, they may be purchased at the Registration Desk.

The deadline for purchasing discounted tickets to The Triumph of Love is 1 March 2020. Thereafter tickets will be available at the door for the full price of $20.00 only.

Seating is limited for all meals and ticketed events. Meal and event tickets are not refundable.

Please contact the Business Office (asecsoffice@gmail.com) if you have questions about these or any other Annual Meeting activities.

Lisa Berglund

Executive Director

Aimee M. Levesque

Project and Office Manager