Forwarded from H-IDEAS by Ross B. Emmett *********************************************************** 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.