FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA, 20–22 MARCH 2014

Extract

Often the most invigorating conferences are those which bring together many different specialties and integrate them within interdisciplinary panels. Such was the case with the Forty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), which took place in March in Williamsburg, Virginia. The event was enormous, with over eight hundred presenters spread among 221 panels, in addition to seven plenary sessions and other special events such as the masquerade ball hosted by the Women's Caucus. Music and other performing arts were well represented throughout the weekend; both the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music and the Mozart Society of America sponsored panels, and many papers about the arts were included in other groupings. Given the large number of papers and other events, it was impossible to attend all or even most of the offerings. However, I will give an overview of my experiences in order to convey a sense of the conference's atmosphere.