Hi there, and here we go as out 
first-week-of-the-Fall-semester(!) here in 
sticky, hyper-humid Tallahades begins to settle down:

  a short while ago I posted the following
  announcement within our SASA portion
  of theasa.net, so here for good measure
  is a copy via our e-mail list (and, yeah,
  in a moment I'll see about our Facebook
  page  : )

At our ‘009 conference at George Mason, we had a 
lively, substantive, interdisciplinary discussion 
of historian Woody Holton’s Unruly Americans and 
the Origins of the Constitution -- and I’m 
cooking one up for our Atlanta conference on the 
book Custerology, by Michael Elliott of Emory 
University. To apply, e-mail Dennis Moore, 
[log in to unmask], by the Monday after Labor Day, September 13. Thanks!

Rather than presenting papers, each participant 
in this interdisciplinary panel, including 
Michael Elliott of Emory University, author of 
Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian 
Wars and George Armstrong Custer, will make a 
four- or five-minute opening statement laying out 
a specific issue or question related to the 
book.  That round of brief opening statements 
frees up time for lively, substantive discussion 
that engages audience members as well as 
panelists.  In organizing and occasionally 
chairing sessions along these lines (e.g., with 
Woody Holton on his Unruly Americans, at our most 
recent bienniale; with historian Marcus Rediker 
on The Slave Ship at the Society of Early 
Americanists’ sixth biennial conference, in 
Hamilton, Bermuda;  with Stephanie Smallwood on 
her Frederick Douglass Prize-winning Salt-Water 
Slavery, for the November ‘009 American Studies 
Association conference, in D.C.;  with Joanna 
Brooks on her American Lazarus: Religion and the 
Rise of African-American and Native American 
Literatures at the ASA’s ‘006 conference at 
Oakland;  with Vincent Carretta on Equiano, the 
African at the American Society for 
Eighteenth-Century Studies’ ‘007 conference, at 
Atlanta;  with Joseph Roach on Cities of the 
Dead, at ASECS’s ‘006 conference in 
Montréal;  with Srinivas Aravamudan on 
Tropicopolitans, at the New Orleans ASECS, in 
‘001, and so on), the session organizer has 
learned to work hard at avoiding two 
extremes:  on the one hand, assembling a 
tablefull of sycophants ready to drool on cue 
and/or the author, and, on the other, assembling 
a lineup that would include someone intent on an 
academic ambush: trashing author over his or her 
methods, conclusions, and maybe parents.  No fan 
club, then, and no food fights!   Dinnertime 
Monday, Sept 13 firm deadline for contacting 
Dennis Moore, [log in to unmask]  Thanks!

    Looking forward,

   --Dennis

"all feelings grow to passions in the South"
--Forster (describing Italy  : ), in Room With A View
Dr. DENNIS D. MOORE  /       [log in to unmask]
Choreographer, American Studies Association's EARLY
  AMERICAN MATTERS Caucus, within theasa.net
   University Distinguished Teaching Professor
Associate Professor / Department of English /  (850) 644-1177
Florida State University   /   Tallahassee 32306-1580  U.S.A.