Forwarded from H-IDEAS by Ross B. Emmett 
 
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CALL FOR PAPERS 
 
FROM REDEMPTION TO REAGANISM: 
AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, 1865-1980 
 
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE 
3-4 MAY 1996 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 
 
 
This conference is designed to bring scholars together from a 
variety of disciplines to discuss all aspects of modern American 
conservatism.  Scholars have tended to see the history of 
America in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a 
series of reform movements spawned by the rise and 
development of industrial capitalism.  The changing nature and 
shape of American liberalism have thus been the central 
concerns.  Conservatives, if they appear at all, tend to be 
pictured as a static bloc, slowing but not stopping reform by 
desperately attempting to shore up the status quo. 
Conservatism was of little interest either to the historians of the 
consensus school -- who celebrated liberal reform -- or to those 
of the New Left -- who mounted a critique of American 
liberalism.  It is now clear that the history of conservatism has to 
play a greater role in our understandings of the modern United 
States. 
 
Possible paper topics include:  What has been the relationship 
between elite conservatives and grass-roots conservative 
movements?  How have the meanings of "conservative" and 
"liberal" in the area of foreign policy shifted during the 
"American Century"?  How have conservatives reconciled a 
belief in the unfettered growth of commercial capitalism with 
traditionalist, anti-modern values?  What role have black 
conservatives played in American conservatism?  How have 
sectional interests and ethnic allegiances in party politics 
obscured, highlighted, or inhibited the articulation of an 
American conservatism?  In what ways have women shaped 
conservatism in America?  How are American conservative 
movements similar to and different from right-wing movements 
in other countries? 
 
Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words 
by December 1, 1995 to: 
 
Benjamin L. Alpers / Jennifer Delton 
Department of History 
Dickinson Hall 
Princeton University 
Princeton, NJ  08544 
 
Conference sponsors include:  Princeton University 250th Anniversary 
Committee; Princeton University Department of English, Department of 
History, Program in Afro-American Studies, and Program in American 
Studies; Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; Shelby 
Collum Davis Center for Historical Studies; Princeton University Third 
World Center.