Ronald and Mary Zboray Give Keynote Address at Universität Seigen Conference

Ronald J. Zboray, Professor of Communication and Mary Saracino Zboray, Visiting Scholar in Communication were invited to give a keynote address at the Universität Seigen, Seigen, Germany, where the conference “Popular Culture-Serial Culture: Nineteenth Century Serial Fictions in Transnational Perspective, 1830s to 1860s” was held from April 28 to 30.  Their address, “Between Hamburg and Boston: Frederick Gleason and the Rise of Serial Fiction in the United States,” was presented on April 29.  It explored the transnational influences upon fiction serialized in the Boston story papers of Hamburg native Frederick Gleason, the United States’ most prolific publisher of American-authored first edition novels between 1837 and 1857.  Gleason’s international ties and sense of cosmopolitanism impacted his editorial policies, choice of authors and illustrators, the themes and settings of the serial novels he published, and the format of the newspapers in which they appeared.  Rather than being simple expressions of U.S. nationalism and imperialism, the productions of Gleason looked outward to the world and embraced international political, cultural, artistic, and literary trends.

Scholars in the fields of American Studies, Communication, History, Literature, Media Culture and Theater, and Radio-Television-Cinema, coming from Austria, Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, participated in the three-day long conference convened by Prof. Dr. Daniel Stein and Lisanna Wiele, M.A., Anglistik‑Amerikanistik, Universität Seigen.  For more on the conference click here.