Skip to Content

Symposium on the 19th Century Press

Search UTC.edu:

Campus & People

Resources:

Symposium on the 19th Century Press Header

The steering committee of the twentieth annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression solicits papers dealing with U.S. mass media of the 19th century, the Civil War in fiction and history, freedom of expression in the 19th century, presidents and the 19th century press, images of race and gender in the 19th century press, and sensationalism and crime in 19th century newspapers. Selected papers will be presented during the three-day conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 8-10, 2012.  The top three papers and the top three student papers will be honored accordingly. Due to the generosity of the Walter and Leona Schmitt Family Foundation Research Fund, the winners of the student awards will receive $250 honoraria for delivering their papers at the conference.

The purpose of the November conference is to share current research and to develop a series of monographs. This year the steering committee will pay special attention to papers on presidents and the 19th century press and 19th century concepts of free expression.  Papers from the first five conferences were published by Transaction Publishers in 2000 as a book of readings called The Civil War and the Press.  More recently, Purdue University Press published papers from past conferences in three distinctly different books titled Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction and Film from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Cold Mountain (2007), Words at War: The Civil War and American Journalism (2008), and Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press (2009).
           
The symposium is sponsored by the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, the UT-Chattanooga Department of Communication, the UT-Chattanooga Department of History, the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Fund for the Symposium, and the Walter and Leona Schmitt Family Foundation Research Fund, and because of this sponsorship, no registration fee will be charged.