Proposers may wish to identify and explore long-standing, current and emerging intellectual debates in American Studies; to explore critically the varying practices and methodologies in American Studies; to bring to life current discussions and to posit potential paradigms in American Studies.

The various anniversaries of 2016 provide a variety of potential foundations for proposals.

• 150 years earlier marked the start of post-Civil War Reconstruction.
• The 1860s was the era of the dime novel, and Seeley Regester’s The Dead Letter, credited by some as the first full-length American crime novel, appeared in 1866.
• 125 years will have passed since Thomas Edison patented the motion camera.
• 1916 saw the creation of the US National Parks Service;
• the opening of the nation’s first birth control clinic;
• the election from Montana of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman to sit in the US House of Representatives;
• the release of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance;
• the publication of Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems.
• Shirley Jackson, Walker Percy, and Walter Cronkite were born in 1916.
• Henry James died in the same year.
• The National Organization for Women celebrates its 50^th anniversary in 2016.
• Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, its narrative echoing the American Revolution, also dates from 1966.
• Star Trek first reached TV screens in that same year.

• discussion and exploration through various methodologies of the USA’s strong, diverse and expanding literary canon;
• the multi-dimensional character and seemingly endless inventiveness of America’s cultural output;
• the adaptability of American culture in an age offering radically new social media;
• the heritage that might be left after the nation’s first African-American presidency;
• the ongoing 2016 elections.

The EAAS conference encompasses topics across the disciplinary spectrum in American Studies, as well as interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches to the subject. The themes mentioned above are only indicative, and not in any way intended to be a definitive list.

The conference content will be defined by the range and breadth of your suggestions and the conference committee looks forward to receiving many different and stimulating proposals.