Cameron Seglias
Research Interests
- Eighteenth-Century Transatlantic Antislavery
- Print Culture and the History of the Book
- Religion and the Public Sphere
- Mysticism
- Anti-consumerism and Critiques of Early Modern Capitalism
- Modern and Post-Modern Anglo-American Poetry and Poetics
- Theater and Performance
Education
|
10/2015 - 09/2017 |
MA in North American Literature and Cultural Studies John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin Thesis: “Hints Left in Writing: Print History, Hermeneutics, and the Creation of a Readerly Ethics in John Woolman’s Journal” First Advisor: Prof. Frank Kelleter Second Advisor: Prof. Mary Ann Snyder-Körber |
| 08/2008 - 05/2012 |
BA in Languages and Literature Bard College Senior Project: “Within This Hazel” Advisor: Prof. Robert Kelly Board Members: Prof. Ann Lauterbach, Prof. Karen Sullivan |
Fellowships and Prizes
| 04/2019 |
Barra Foundation International Research Fellowship Library Company of Philadelphia/Historical Society of Pennsylvania |
| 11/2018 |
Willi Paul Adams Prize Award for the best MA Thesis John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin |
| 10/2018 - |
German Research Foundation (DFG) Doctoral Fellowship |
| 05/2012 |
The Flow Chart Foundation/Academy of American Poets Prize |
| 05/2011 |
Irma Brandeis Prize Award for the best thesis proposal in the Humanities Bard College |
| 05/2011 |
Mary McCarthy Prize Award for the best undergraduate prose Bard College |
Work Experience
|
11/2017 – |
Research Assistant Department of English and American Studies Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg Coordinator for English Language Offerings Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg |
|
10/2016 - |
Teaching Assistant Department of Literature John F. Kennedy Institut, Freie Universität Berlin |
|
08/2012 - |
Academic Assistant Bard College Berlin |
|
05/2011 - 09/2011 |
Archivist Department of Art History Bard College |
Other Academic Experience
| 09/2017 |
Certification as Academic Writing Instructor Schreibzentrum|Writing Center Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg |
|
09/2010 - 05/2011 |
Student Member, Professorship Appointment Committee Department of Medieval Studies Bard College |
Professional Memberships
Member, German Association for American Studies (DGfA/GAAS)
Member, Charles Brockden Brown Society
| Summer 2018 |
War and Peace in American Culture from the Colonial Era to the Present Department of English and American Studies Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg |
The Published Self: Modernity, Ethics, Eighteenth-Century Antislavery (dissertation project)
Dissertation in Culture
Mentoring team:
First supervisor: Prof. Dr. Frank Kelleter
Second supervisor: Prof. Dr. Florian Sedlmeier
Third supervisor: Prof. Dr. Laura M. Stevens
Many accounts of the public sphere’s development in eighteenth-century England and its American colonies still tend to emphasize the public sphere’s secularism and division of public and private conceptions of the self. The problem with this narrative is that it omits the perspectives and contributions of marginalized people and the significance of religious affect. I propose to address this insufficient interpretation through analyses of texts that I call published selves. The double meaning of “published” becomes essential here: the published self must be “made public” and “put into print” or otherwise circulated. Moreover, the published self is distinguished by its inclusion of other technologies of communication such as letter-writing, public statements, and excerption, signaling the importance of its embeddedness in larger discursive and material networks.
Although its roots lay in early Christian practices, the published self’s first modern precursors are found in seventeenth-century English Quakerism. These Friends explicitly referred to themselves as “publishers of truth,” dually stressing orality and print. In colonial America, the published self reemerged as a form of ethical response to the horrors of a slave society, in which many Quakers and Methodists were complicit. I contend that this antislavery tactic of resistance was not limited to a few radical Quakers such as Benjamin Lay (1681-1759) and John Woolman (1720-1772), but was also used to great effect by evangelical writers of African descent such as Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) and Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797). These texts, along with the portraits, images, and performances that circulated in conjunction with them, seek to demonstrate the coherence of thought and action. Collectively, they deny the self’s bifurcation into an “authentic” private self and public “mask,” fundamentally challenging accepted narratives about the emergence and development of the public sphere and its association with liberal ideas of progress.
Publications“Conference Report: 1898: Imag(in)ing the Caribbean in the Age of the Spanish-American War, 25 June 2019, Freie Universität Berlin,” Humanities – Sozial und Kulturgeschichte (H-Soz-Kult), forthcoming. For Else. Annandale-on-Hudson: Metambesen, 2014. (Poetry) “Julian Beck/Now in Paradise,” Mousse Magazine (June 2014). (Review) “Nights in September” and “Supplication,” Anthem Journal (May 2014). (Poetry) “Anon,” Bard Papers (Spring 2012): 32-33.(Poetry) “To Build the Cathedral of Ephemeral Materials: The Question of a Contemporary Poetics,” Forum (Spring 2010): 5-10. (Essay) Conferences and Invited Talks“‘Black as Cain:’ Eighteenth-Century Dissenting Protestantism’s Ambiguous Antislavery” (3-5 October 2019, “Dissent of the Governed, c18 and c21,” Charles Brockden Brown Society 12th Biennial Conference, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY). “The Published Self: Modernity, Ethics, Eighteenth-Century Antislavery” (13 September 2019, Talk at the Helmerich Center for American Research, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK). Co-Organizer and Panel Chair (22-24 May 2019, “American Ambiguities: Is Now the Era of Our Disconsent?” 12th Annual Graduate Conference, Graduate School for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin). “The Published Self” (4-6 October 2018, “Transatlantic Conversations: New and Emerging Approaches to Early American Studies,” Society of Early Americanists/Obama Institute Joint Workshop and Conference, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz). Theater and PerformancePerformer, Fantomoj, directed by Marie Schleef. Universität der Künste Berlin, October 2016. Set and costume designer, Schlamm/Mud, directed by Marie Schleef. BAT, HfS Ernst Busch, September 2015. Author and dramaturge, Christina Mirabilis, directed by Marie Schleef. Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, November 2013. |
