Congress of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies,
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
October 15-18, 2025
Trans/Formations: Crossing Borders, Blurring Boundaries
The Long Eighteenth Century is marked by a relentless desire to separate, to codify, to establish boundaries and limits. Renaissance models of culture narrowed to systems of classification and surveillance; scientific revolutions worked to order knowledge, to create definitive categories and taxonomies. In the same way, landscapes were marked by enclosures, and by colonial limits and borders, delineating visible signs of land ownership and autonomy, while laying the foundations for “scientific” designations of race and gender.
At the same time, there were efforts to frustrate such easy demarcations. During this metamorphic period, we see tensions between the transformative and the stable, the transgressive and the conforming, the transcendent and the mundane. As the borders of Europe are continually redrawn through violent warfare and colonization, the lines of race, gender, and sexuality are also transforming. Non-European peoples demonstrate intellectual and cultural qualities that help to deconstruct definitions of civilisation. African slaves who become baptised Christians see themselves as on a par with White Christians. LGBTQ+ individuals are more visible than ever, and by 1821, Anne Lister is able to write confidently in her diary: I love, and only love, the fairer sex.
Joey Gamble notes, in their work on philology, that words such as “transfeminate” and “transexion”—both denoting gender transition—begin to emerge in the latter half of the seventeenth century. And by the eighteenth century, we can see a variety of trans lives in print: the outlaw narrative of Giovanni Bordoni; the memoir of the Chevalier D’Eon, who works to tell their own story; and gender-diverse people like Princess Seraphina, who appear in court documents surrounding Molly Houses and other queer spaces.
CSECS 2025 invites papers from all disciplines on all aspects of this long century of transition, from sexuality and gender diversity to trans/formations of geography, philosophy, and politics. We’re eager to hear from you about how culture transforms during this era.
Paper topics may include, but are not limited to:
- political, social, artistic, and philosophical transformations
- technological innovations and revolutions
- court cases, newspaper entries, periodicals, and reports that deal with transgression or transformation
- discussions that connect particularly with nêhiyawak, Anihšinâpêk, Dakota, Lakota, Nakoda peoples, and members of the Métis/Michif nation
- addressing/reclaiming the cultures of queer-Indigenous and Two Spirit people from 1660 to 1820 in “Canada” and beyond
- writers of color and BIPOC lives/stories in the long eighteenth century, including work by Phillis Wheatley, Mary Prince, Ignatius Sancho, and others.
- sexuality and gender diversity in work by authors such as the Earl of Rochester, Lord Byron, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Horace Walpole, Lord Hervey, Tobias Smollett, John Cleland, Margaret Cavendish, Frances Burney, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Calderón de la Barca, Jane Austen, and others
- broadsides, anonymous works (e.g. The Famous Mr. Wilson, A Spy on Mother Midnight), and other popular texts dealing with gender and sexuality
- redefining terms in both official dictionaries and popular guides to slang/canting
- historical persecution of queer and gender-diverse people (the Inquisition, waves of colonization, raids on specific community spaces like Mother Clap’s Molly House or the later Vere St. Coterie)
- radical and transgressive topics of your choosing
We particularly invite papers by scholars of color, LGBTQ+, queer-Indigenous and Two Spirit scholars, disabled and chronically-ill scholars, and sessional/adjunct scholars working under conditions of precarity. We are also open to creative presentations, pedagogy panels, and other radical interventions into the discipline of eighteenth-century studies. Some time will be reserved for online panels, allowing scholars to present remotely.
While we encourage panel and paper proposals that address the conference theme, papers on any topic related to the long eighteenth century are welcome.
Deadline for submission of panel proposals is March 1, 2025
Deadline for submission of paper proposals is March 31, 2025
All those presenting at the conference must be members in good standing with CSECS.
Paper proposals should include a title, a 150-word summary, and a brief biographical note indicating the presenter’s name, email, academic status, and institutional affiliation.
Panel proposals should include titles and 150-word summaries of both panel and individual papers, and brief biographical notes for all presenters (normally three) and respondents (if any), including names, e-mail addresses, academic statuses, and institutional affiliations.
Please send your proposals to CSECS2025@uregina.ca
Participants may present papers in English or French and will be invited to submit articles based on their papers in either language to Lumen, the journal of CSECS, for publication.
Organising Committee: Noel Chevalier (English, Luther College, chair), Jes Battis (English, University of Regina), Garry Sherbert (English, University of Regina), Robin Ganev (History, University of Regina), Kate Cushon (Subject Librarian, Archer Library, University of Regina)
