Space, Scale, and Spectacle
INCS and NAVSA welcome scholars to Dallas 3–6 November 2027 to consider our keywords “Space, Scale, and Spectacle” in the context of nineteenth century studies. These keywords reflect the conference meeting’s location in a city and a state renowned for their vastness and flamboyance. They also reflect the concerns of the nineteenth century, during which imperial expansion and settler colonialism, industrialization and urbanization, technological innovation and scientific discovery transformed understandings of space and time. Human endeavor loomed large even as humanity’s place in time seemed to shrink under new evidence of its insignificance. Colonial extraction and mass manufacturing drove consumer culture, and the century’s penchant for display was on display at the French Industrial Exposition of 1844, Britain’s Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. While the popularity of public spectacles such as music halls, circuses, and séances grew, new forms of technology such as the phonograph, the stereoscope, and chromoxylography scaled down entertainment to fit the home.
Our keywords are intended to inspire rather than constrain your ideas. We urge you to “Think Big” as you consider how the nineteenth century understood the relationships between the local and the global, the miniature and the monumental, the split second and the long durée, the mundane and the extraordinary.
We welcome proposals for individual papers, panels of 3–4 presenters, and roundtables of 5–7 presenters. We also encourage innovations on these traditional formats. Please reach out to conference organizers at navsaincs2027@gmail.com with ideas or questions. The portal for submissions will open in November 2026 with a deadline in early March 2027.
Possible topics include:
- World’s fairs, exhibitions, and expositions
- Technologies of vision and observation
- Photography, print culture, and mass media
- Cartography, surveying, and spatial knowledge
- Colonial and imperial geographies
- Tourism, travel, and mobility
- Consumerism and waste
- Panoramas and visual spectacles
- Theatres, performances, and public entertainments
- Museums, collections, and display practices
- Landscapes and environments
- Space and indigeneity
- Spectacles of science and industry
- Enclosure, privacy, and small spaces
- Global networks and transnational connections
- Maritime, railway, and communication infrastructures
- Quantification and measurement
- Big money, big ideas, big egos
- Trifles and minutiae
- Scaling up and scaling down