C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, is the first academic organization dedicated to nineteenth-century American literary studies. “Prospects: A New Century,” the second biennial conference of C19, will take place at UC Berkeley in April 2012, continuing the work of rethinking and expanding the terms of our engagement with this period.

 Ongoing expansions, critiques, reformulations, historicizations, and theorizations of nineteenth-century American literary and cultural productions have occupied much of the critical energies of the field in recent years. Beyond providing a forum for and encouragement of developments in literary studies already operating in the field, C19 seeks to develop innovative methodologies for the intra- and inter-disciplinary study of the long American nineteenth century (1789–1914). This continues the project begun in 2010 at Penn State, “Imagining-A-New-Century,” which inaugurated C19′s series of biennial conferences, animating conversations about imagination, textual production, aesthetics, community formation, and ethical democracy. C19 will also launch a journal, which will be the forum for disseminating, debating, and implementing these new methodologies.