Conference Sociability & Sensibility: ASECS 2014, Colonial Williamsburg

This year's convention for the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies was held in Colonial Williamsburg last week, and, as usual for me, it was a great success. Of course, the fact that it was in a historically-appropriate location certainly helped; it was decidedly easier to feel that one had magically stepped into the world of the eighteenth century when just a short walk from the conference venue there is an entire village of reenactors wearing full-on eighteenth-century garb! (Cleveland last year was fun, but not nearly as atmospheric.)

Just a regular day in Ye Olde Williamsburg!

Like many conferences,of course ASECS can be tiring, frenzied, and frustrating. Unlike most other conferences I've been to though, I find ASECS also unusually welcoming, friendly, and fun, in addition to extremely useful for expanding my own scholarship and making new friends and contacts. This year's conference was particularly enhanced by the masquerade ball organized by the Women's Caucus as a fundraiser for the prizes the Caucus awards every year.

I don't think anyone knew quite what to expect from the masquerade ball...How many people would dress up? Bring masks? Be game for the merriment? Would anyone show up? I was curious as, I think, was almost everyone else. Personally, I've always been a big fan of costumed parties, so I knew I would go no matter what. Luckily, many people at the conference seemed to be of my bent, because when we arrived at 9:30 in the evening, the room was already half full, only to become fuller!

We're ready to have a ball!

There were people in all manners of costume, many from the eighteenth century and the Regency period, with a smattering of various other forms of costume, disguise and masque. Some people went all out with head-to-toe costumes (as, for example, one person came as Charles II, complete with buckles on his shoes, a long dark curly wig, and a stuffed dog to represent the King's favorite spaniel!), while others opted to add a mask or a wig or a fancy hat to a fancy dress, and that worked too.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that in my costume and mask, some people really could not recognize me at all; at one point, I was even mistaken for someone else. The reason this pleased me was because it made me realize that our little experiment in eighteenth-century sociability was true to the original: masquerades allow one to become someone else, to go incognito, to trick people around us! Eighteenth-century novels are full of examples of characters who go to masquerades and talk to friends (or enemies) without realizing who they are. As a modern-day reader, these examples always seemed improbable to me. How could Clarence Hervey, for example, not recognize that he is speaking to Belinda and not Lady Delacour in the masquerade scene in Belinda? Surely he would notice the switch of costume! The ASECS masquerade ball proved me wrong--in a good way!

Aside from illustrating an eighteenth-century truism, however, the ball had another magical side to it: it threw all of us scholars together, without regard to seniority, age, gender or any other quality, and (with, no doubt, the help of a little alcohol) put us all on the dance floor together in a jumble of bodies and energy that made the conference more human and enjoyable than just about any other scholarly event I've ever been to. It was a reminder that we are all people, all wanting to have a good time, and, of course, that we eighteenth-century folk are some of the funnest and game-est people in the academy! Additionally, like an eighteenth-century masquerade, it also created a "world turned upside-down," where we could all experiment a little with who we are and how we present ourselves to the world.

Of course, there were other highlights to the conference. My paper on Catherine Vizzani and eighteenth-century dildo poems received a lot of great feedback during the Queer Transnationalism panel, which made me very happy. I reconnected with many wonderful scholars that I have met at previous conventions--and I managed to meet several more wonderful scholars whose works I admire and whose ideas have had an impact on my own scholarship. I had dinner in an eighteenth-century tavern, learned how eighteenth-century shoes were made, and bought myself some prints of eighteenth-century macaronis to put up on my walls. I walked the streets of Colonial Williamsburg, which, despite having an air of Disney about it, is beautiful and wonderful and, last weekend, was already showing signs of spring which seems that it may finally be arriving.

I could live here. It's adorable!