<< There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about >>
__________
A page advertising Conference and Journal Calls, of interest or potential interest to our readers.
page updated 3rd March 2010
Please contact us if you would like a Call for Papers included here.
For the Table of Contents, click | To hub page | To THE OSCHOLARS home page
Beginning with the Spring, 2010 issue, The Victorian Newsletter will offer a new column featuring reviews of films, televised series (novel adaptations, for example), art exhibits, musical and stage adaptations, and web resources relevant to Victorian texts and contexts. Such recent films as ‘Creation’, ‘Young Victoria’, and ‘Sherlock Holmes’ come most readily to mind; other extra-literary treatments of Victorian literature and culture are most welcome. Please address electronic submissions (approx. 1500-2500 words) to: deborah.logan@wku.edu or victorian.newsletter@wku.edu.
Calls for Papers once e-mailed to and by the University of Pennsylvania are now only to be found on-line. Instead of emailing cfp@english.upenn.edu, see the web form submission at http://cfp.english.upenn.edu/submit.html. Submissions will appear on the website archive within 24 hours. Links to the archive and more information are on the main CfP page http://cfp.english.upenn.edu/. Announcements will be made on the main CfP website.
The English Subject Centre at Royal Holloway College administers a JISCmail service called LIT-LANG-CULTURE-EVENTS@jiscmail.ac.uk. One can join LIT-LANG-CULTURE-EVENTS by visiting http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/LIT-LANG-CULTURE-EVENTS.html. (One must be a list member in order to post.) Announcements sent to LIT-LANG-CULTURE-EVENTS will be distributed to members once they have been approved. If you have any enquiries please email esc@rhul.ac.uk.
Calls here are posted in a rolling list, in chronological order of deadline, with the Table of Contents in alphabetical order of subject, linked directly to each CfP. Calls are removed on expiry. The list will run three months ahead. Those without deadline have the month of entry printed and will remain posted for three months. The Conferences to which they refer will in turn be listed when their programmes are published, on our Conferences & Seminars page.
All details should be checked for changes with the organisers, not with THE OSCHOLARS.
Please send any Call you want us to include to oscholars@gmail.com and please mention THE OSCHOLARS if you are offering a paper. Readers who give papers may publish their abstracts in THE OSCHOLARS.
Click  for quick access to any of these calls. Any calls in bold have a specific reference to Wilde.
Theatre and Art History calls will be found respectively in our sections and VISIONS . Click their logo’s to reach them.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
British Studies (1)		Order and Chaos
British Studies (2)		Oscar Wilde and Socialism
British Studies (3)		Popular Sex: Media and Sexuality in Germany in the Early 20th Century
Contemporary British Theatre: Towards a New Canon		Queer Manifestations
Cultural History		Reading and Writing in Prison
Culture, Theory & Critique : Interdisciplinarity		Robert Louis Stevenson
Henry James		Robert Louis Stevenson in the Pacific
Irish Identities Inside & Outside the Island		Specters Of Utopia
James Joyce		Steampunk! The Popular Version of Neo-Victorianism
Literature and Philosophy 1850-1910		Transgressions
Modernist Wilde		Vexed Encounters
Nineteenth Century Feminisms: Press and Platform		Victorians and Continental Politics
Nineteenth Century Photographs of Architecture		Victorians and the East
Numbering the Victorians		Victorian Forms and Formations
		Women, Femininity, and Public Space in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture
.
Oscholars Special Issue Spring 2010
The Soul of Man: Oscar Wilde and Socialism
H.G. Wells once wrote that Oscar Wilde’s 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism' offers ‘an artist’s view of socialism, but not a socialist’s.’ George Orwell, reviewing the essay in 1948, called Wilde’s vision of socialism ‘Utopian and anarchistic.’ So was Oscar Wilde a socialist? an anarchist? An ‘individualist’? or politically unquantifiable? He was acquainted with the leading socialists of the time, from William Morris to G. B. Shaw, his sympathy for socialist and anarchist ideas was well known, and 'The Soul of Man' attained great popularity with the radical movements of Central and Eastern Europe and the USA. This refereed special issue of Oscholars, a widely read electronic journal devoted to Wilde and the fin de siècle, solicits essays on any aspect of 'The Soul of Man' or, more broadly, Wilde in relation to socialism and anarchism.
The deadline for submission of completed essays to Anna Vaninskaya at av323@cam.ac.uk (1500-2500 words) was 15th December 2009, but after publication the Issue will accept submissions for possible later inclusion.
For more information about Oscholars and to view previous special issues please consult http://www.oscholars.com/
MARCH
James Joyce
On behalf of the International James Joyce Foundation, we invite you to the XXII International James Joyce Symposium in the ‘Golden City’ of Prague, 13th–18th June 2010.
Proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes duration are welcome on any aspect of Joyce studies, especially those that focus on the relationship of Joyce to Prague and the heritage of Central European modernism in the arts, philosophy and theory–particularly the legacies of structuralism and the Prague linguistic circle.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 1st March 2010
Prague is at the centre of Europe as Joyce is at the centre of the tradition of European modernism, and it is fitting that the major European author of the twentieth century be honoured in the city that is the very heart of modern Europe.
Historically, some of the earliest translations of Joyce's work appeared in Prague, and the first President of the Czechoslovak Republic, T.G. Masaryk, was even believed to have annotated a first edition of Ulysses, although only the first French edition survives in the Masaryk archive today.
Nowadays the work of Joyce represents a major focal point of philological research at Charles University, where the first electronic journal of Joyce scholarship was founded in 1994: Hypermedia Joyce Studies. Since 2003 a biannual Joyce colloquium has taken place in Prague, augmented by a series of book publications through the Litteraria Pragensia imprint.
Charles University is itself one of the oldest universities in Europe, having been founded in 1348. Moreover, the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures was the original home of Prague Structuralism, whose legacy–through the work of Rene Wellek and Roman Jakobson–has had an enduring impact on Joyce scholarship internationally. It is only fitting that Joyce's work be celebrated in such an environment, in a country that was also the homeland not only of Kafka, but of Freud, Mahler and Husserl.
Patron: We are proud to announce that the patron of the XXII International James Joyce Symposium is the former Czech President, dissident and playwright, Vaclav Havel.
Dedication: It is the wish of the host committee to dedicate the 2010 Symposium to the memory of Prof. Donald F. Theall (1928-2008).
More Information: Symposium website http://www.jamesjoyce.cz
BRITISH STUDIES (1)
Annual Meeting Baltimore, Maryland 12th–14th November, 2010
The NACBS and its Mid-Atlantic affiliate, the MACBS, seek participation by scholars in all areas of British Studies for the 2010 meeting. We solicit proposals for panels on Britain, the British Empire, and the British world. Our interests range from the medieval to the modern. Though primarily a conference of historians, we welcome participation by scholars across the humanities and social sciences, especially on interdisciplinary panels.
We invite panel proposals addressing selected themes, methodology, and pedagogy, as well as roundtable discussions of topical and thematic interest, including conversations among authors of recent books. North American scholars, international scholars, and graduate students are all encouraged to submit proposals to the NACBS Program Committee.
Strong preference will be given to complete panel or roundtable proposals that consider a common theme. Panels typically include three papers and a comment; roundtables customarily have four presentations. Individual paper proposals will also be considered in rare cases. Those with single paper submissions are strongly encouraged to search for additional panelists on lists such as H-Albion or at venues such as the NACBS Facebook page. Applicants may also write to the Program Chair for suggestions (nacbsprogram@gmail.com).
Committed to ensuring the broadest possible participation of scholars in British Studies, the Program Committee will give priority to those who did not read papers at the 2009 meeting. Panels that include both graduate students and established scholars are especially encouraged, as are submissions with broad chronological focus and interdisciplinary breadth. In order to encourage intellectual interchange, we ask applicants to compose panels that feature participation from a range of institutions. Single-institution panels are not encouraged; similarly, graduate supervisors are discouraged from appearing on panels with their own students and very recent graduates. No participant will be permitted to take part in more than one session except in exceptional circumstances cleared by the Program Committee, and no more than one proposal will be considered from each applicant.
All submissions must be received by 1st March 2010. For details, directions, and online submission (to be posted soon), see www.nacbs.org/conference.html.
Please send questions about panel requirements and suggestions about program development to Lara Kriegel, NACBS Program Chair Department of History, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199 nacbsprogram@gmail.com
Reading and Writing in Prison
An interdisciplinary conference Edinburgh Napier University, 4th–5th June 2010
This conference aims to bring together scholars, writers and practitioners to share their perspectives on the significance of reading and writing in prisons. Writing about imprisonment raises key issues that go beyond an immediate concern with incarceration and its institutions, involving notions of subjectivity, citizenship and nationhood. Scholars and practitioners alike have long been arguing that opportunities for reading and writing in prisons can become a dignifying tool for prisoners to re-evaluate and reconstruct their lives, with positive impact on recidivism rates. The conference will act as a platform for exchange about existing scholarship and practice in the area, with the long-term goal of facilitating future research networks, publications and practical projects.
This event explicitly seeks conversations across the disciplines and between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’. Contributors are invited to address reading, writing and imprisonment in any geographical location, in both historical and contemporary contexts. Some of the questions this conference wishes to address are: what defines the genre of prison literature or prison autobiography and how has it changed historically? How do institutional contexts and penal policies impact on reading and writing in prison? What effect do creative practice, prison education and reading groups have on groups of offenders and, conversely, society at large? What is the role of researchers and universities in contributing to debates around narratives of imprisonment, reading and writing in prison?
Possible topics include:
* Prison literature and prison (auto)biography as a genre * The history and publishing context of prison writing * Representations of prison reading and writing experiences * Gender, class, ethnicity/race and age and their impact on reading and writing in prison * Writing and political imprisonment * Prison libraries and reading groups * Creative writing in prisons: practice and problems
Invited speakers who have agreed to participate (subject to funding) include: Ed Wiltse on student-prisoner reading groups and the object(s) of literary studies; Gowan Calder and Caspar Walsh on creative writing; Jenny Hartley and Rosalind Crone on prison reading in the nineteenth century; Sarah Turvey on prison reading groups; Bashabi Fraser on the imprisoned writer and the nation.
Contributors should submit an abstract of their proposed paper (250 words) and a brief biographical statement to a.schwan@napier.ac.uk by 1st March 2010.
For further information, please contact the organiser: Dr Anne Schwan, School of Arts and Creative Industries, Edinburgh Napier University Craighouse Campus, Craighouse Road, Edinburgh EH10 5LG, Scotland. Email: a.schwan@napier.ac.uk Phone: (0044) (0)131 455 6131
Robert Louis Stevenson
The 6th biennial conference on Robert Louis Stevenson will be held 8-10 July 2010, at the University of Stirling. Confirmed speakers include Laura Marcus and James Robertson.
A full Call for Papers can be found at this link: http://www.rls2010.stir.ac.uk/call-for-papers/
Full details of the conference (including the social programme and registration details) can be found at the conference website. Please submit your proposal by 1st March 2010.
http://www.rls2010.stir.ac.uk/
Please note that a discounted conference fee is available for those whose register early.
Dr Scott Hames, University of Stirling
Henry James Review
The Women
Thirty years ago, the new fields of Women’s Studies and Feminist Criticism looked with interest at the fiction of Henry James. For many, his work offered an exception to the general misogyny of American male writing; for others, the Master’s œuvre was irredeemably patriarchal. Those early studies re-oriented our critical understandings of Henry James. Recent archival, biographical, critical, and creative work have again shifted how we understand James’s life and writing and re-opened this topic. The Fall 2010 special issue of the Henry James Review seeks to explore, broadly, how we read James with women in the twenty-first century.
Some possible topics include:
* Women’s Studies; * Henry James vs. Gender Studies; * Henry James ; * Letters to, from, and about women ; * Women; *s love, loving women ; * Female bodies: beauty, sex, motherhood, health, disability ; * James and female writers: predecessors, contemporaries, and followers; borrowings, criticism, influence, depictions ; * Women artists; * James/James’s women artists: depiction, criticism, translation ; * Fashion, clothing, interior decoration, objects ; * Gendered politics: suffrage, nationalism, feminism, the law ; * Women and money: work, consumption, inheritance, gifts, ownership, commodification ; * Actresses: depictions, correspondence, casting, performances ; * Hospitality: hostesses, salons, visits, parties ; * Female family: mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces.
Contributions should be submitted in duplicate and produced according to MLA style. Please enclose a cover letter identifying your manuscript as a Forum submission. Also include return postage. One-page proposals or short (10-12 pages) essays should be sent by 1st March 2010, to:
Susan M. Griffin, Editor, Henry James Review, Department of English, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292 USA
Queer Manifestations: Literature, History, Theory, Culture
'Queer Manifestations', a one-day conference at the University of Chester. [‘It's not just for Victorianists but previous Victorian conferences have had a strong queer showing!’]
Saturday 26th June 2010.
Keynote Speaker: Professor Sally Munt (University of Sussex).
This interdisciplinary one-day conference seeks to explore the burgeoning field of queer studies, with particular emphasis on its impact upon literary histories, theories, and cultures. How influential is heteronormativity in culture today, or in the past? Is it true, as Sharon Marcus claims, that ‘queer theory often accentuates the subversive dimensions of lesbian, gay, and transgender acts and identities’? Do readers force heteronormative readings onto queer texts, or vice versa? Must literary readings always focus upon ‘secrecy, shame, oppression, and transgression’? What has it meant to be ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the literary closet?
We welcome papers on any aspect of queer culture, theory, or history. Postgraduate students or early career researchers are especially welcomed.
Possible topics may include:
Queer Relations; * Queer figures in history: authors, protagonists, people; * Queering history: Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration, Romantics; * Queer genres: neoVictorianism, postcolonialism, Modernism, postmodernism; * Apparitional Lesbians or Closeted Men; * Closeted space: the legacy of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick; * Crossdressing, Genderblending, Camp, and Transvestism; * Queer space; * Current debates in queer media
Please send proposals (250 words max) for 15-20 minute papers to Louisa Yates (l.yates@chester.ac.uk) by Friday 5th March 2010.
Louisa Yates, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester CH1 4BJ, Room CPA004 Ext: 1617 Tel: 01244 511617
Modernist Wilde
The Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth-Century English Literature Division would like to announce a call for papers for the next MLA. ‘
Where is Wilde in modernism? Where is modernism in Wilde? Wildean relation to modernist expressive culture, style, and sexual or artistic identities.
Submission Requirements: 250–300-word abstracts and brief vitae Deadline: 8th March 2010 Organizer: Talia C. Schaffer ,Associate Professor of English Co-General Editor, WSQ talia.schaffer@qc.cuny.edu; English Department Queens College, CUNY Flushing, NY 11365 (718) 997-4675; English Department Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016
Modernist Wilde
‘Brandan Rising!’ Irish Identities Inside & Outside the Island
IX International Conference of the Spanish Association for Irish Studies
University of La Laguna, 28th April–1st May 2010
The Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI) is pleased to announce the organization of its IX International Conference, which will be convened by the English Department at the University of La Laguna.
There is a legend in the Canaries which can be traced back to the early moments of the conquest: that of the isle of San Borondón (or St Brandan), which appears and disappears in the sea, changing from location and form. Situated by 17th century sailors and cartographers in between the islands of La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, it is filled with splendorous gardens, birds and trees, to the point that it could be seen as a correlate of paradise on earth. It is also connected to the pseudo-historical Celtic figure of Abbot Brendan of Clonfert, named ‘the traveller’, who lived in the 6th century. In one of his journeys he came across a piece of land that proved to be instead a gigantic whale which moved slowly and peacefully through the Atlantic Ocean (as it appears in Navigatio Sancti Brandani, a medieval text dated 10th/11th century). This fascinating syncretism shows us how a specific culture or tradition is influenced and transformed by others and how identities are the result of general/personal experiences that transcend the national milieu. All this cultural hybridization surpasses frontiers, borders and limits and enriches the countries involved. Bearing the classic representation of Mother Ireland as a unitary identity in mind, we welcome papers that peep into the ways in which Ireland (and the Irish symbols) are represented, melted, used or abused, hybridized or bastardized, integrated or detached; as well as those which explore the ‘Other’ Irelands that may arise out of the distance, be it spatial and/or ideological, caused by a forced or by a voluntary exile (as James Joyce would put it). Aspects such as the following will also be of primary interest:
- Cultural contamination: Shadows of Ireland in the folklore and traditions of other countries. - Cultural Appropriation: the Re-Writing, fake or authentic, of the Irish essence. - ‘Othering’ Ireland: The role of dissidence and alternative voices in the Irish canon. - 'Ireland in mind': Narrating the country from the distance; ‘Imaginary homelands, Irelands of the mind’ (as Salman Rushdie stated, in reference to India).
We invite papers for a twenty-minute delivery, in English or Spanish, which might approach the main theme of the conference from an array of theoretical frameworks and fields of knowledge: linguistic, literary, historical, sociological, gendered, cultural, musical or visual.
Confirmed plenary speakers: - Anne Fogarty (University College Dublin) - Laura Izarra (University of Sao Paulo)
Confirmed keynote writers: - Jamie O'Neill - (to be confirmed)
Scientific Committee: - Ruth Barton (Trinity College Dublin) - Rui Carvalho Homem (U Oporto) - Rosa González Casademont (U Barcelona) - José Francisco Fernández (U Almería) - Luz Mar González Arias (U Oviedo) - Patricia Lynch (U Limerick) - Marisol Morales Ladrón (U Alcalá) - Munira H. Mutran (U Sao Paulo) - Inés Praga Terente (U Burgos) - Eibhear Walshe (U College Cork)
Organising Committee: - Aída Díaz Bild - Marta González Acosta - Mª Luz González Rodríguez - Manuel Augusto Hernández Hernández - Leonor Ruiz-Ayúcar Bello
Organiser: - Juan Ignacio Oliva (jioliva@ull.es)
Submission of proposals: Abstracts of around 250 words should be e-mailed to Juan Ignacio Oliva by Friday 12th March 2010. For reasons of homogeneity, please add a brief cv (5-10 lines) together with your Institution, and e-mail address. Please, do not send it as an attached document but rather include it in the body of the mail. And do not hesitate to contact the organisation for whatever query you may have.
Victorian Forms and Formations
British Association for Victorian Studies 2010 Conference
The 2010 BAVS conference seeks to address the question of ‘form’, in all its varied meanings, in Victorian culture. We invite papers that address the topic of literary form, and that engage with current debates in the field over the return to form in literary criticism, but also wish to broaden the topic to encompass forms and formations in other disciplines, including but not limited to art history, science, architecture, politics, religion and history of the book. Papers might consider the role of different social and political groupings and institutions in the Victorian period, or the formation of a particular idea or discipline. They might deal with wide-ranging debates over varied attempts at reform in the nineteenth century, or could focus on the formation or reformation of the individual. Papers considering material forms, including the fashioning of the body in medical and other discourse, are welcome, as are papers on the physical features of the Victorian landscape: urban and rural spaces, natural forms and the built environment. We also invite papers that are concerned with the reworking of Victorian forms in twentieth and twenty-first century literature and culture.
Plenary speakers : James Eli Adams, Matthew Campbell, Margaret Macdonald, Catherine Robson
A number of postgraduate bursaries will be available for postgraduate students presenting a paper at the conference or acting as a conference reporter. Please check this site in spring 2010 for details of how to apply.
Deadline for submission of abstract: 15th March 2010. Please send a 200-word abstract to bavs@arts.gla.ac.uk
Suggested topics for consideration: * Poetic form; * Narrative form; * Generic formation; * Neoformalism; * Political formations; * Social reform; * Educational reform; * Scientific formations; * Geological forms; * Religious formations; * Imperial formations; * Urban forms; * Architectural form; * Sculptural form; * Domestic design; * Intellectual formations; * Forms of publication; * Bodily formations; * Gendered forms; * Forms of conduct; * Forming identities; * Moral forms; *Neo-victorian forms.
Dr Christine Ferguson Department of English Literature 5/302 University Gardens University of Glasgow G12 8QQ c.ferguson@englit.arts.gla.ac.uk
Victorians and Continental Politics
Proposals are being accepted for a Special Session at MLA 2011. How did Victorian writers respond to such Continental political events as the revolutions of 1848, the Risorgimento, and the Commune? Papers on Continental political figures also welcome. Please email 300-word abstracts by 15th March, 2010, to Lanya Lamouria (llamouria@missouristate.edu).
Useful & Beautiful: The Transatlantic Arts of William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites
University of Delaware, Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, Delaware Art Museum
7th-9th October 2010
"Useful and Beautiful: The Transatlantic Arts of William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites" will be the subject of a conference and related exhibitions to be held 7-9 October 2010 at the University of Delaware (Newark, DE) and at the Delaware Art Museum and the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate (Wilmington, DE). Organized with the assistance of the William Morris Society, "Useful and Beautiful" will highlight the strengths of the University of Delaware's rare books, art, and manuscripts collections; Winterthur's important holdings in American decorative arts; and the Delaware Art Museum's superlative Pre-Raphaelite collection (the largest outside Britain). All events will focus on the multitude of transatlantic exchanges that involved Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic movements of the late nineteenth century.
We seek 250- to 500-word proposals for short papers (15 minutes reading time, maximum) that explore relationships and influences–whether personal, intellectual, political, or aesthetic–connecting William Morris, his friends, associates, and followers in Britain and Europe with their contemporaries and successors in the Americas. The "arts" will include not merely those at which Morris himself excelled–i.e., literature, design, and printing–but also painting, illustration, architecture, performance, and anything related to print culture in general. Papers that examine transatlantic politics, social movements, and environmental issues in light of Morrisian, Pre-Raphaelite, and Arts and Crafts perspectives are also welcome.
Possible topic areas include: William Morris's Influence in and on the Americas • The American Ruskinians • Transatlantic Arts and Crafts Architecture • British Connections to the American Aesthetic Movement • Designers Traveling, East to West or West to East • Arts and Crafts Places, Real and/or Imaginary • British Aesthetic Ideals and American Domestic Interiors • The Kelmscott Press and Transatlantic Print Culture • Aesthetic Periodicals and/or Little Magazines Crossing the Atlantic • Publishing the Pre-Raphaelites in the Americas • American Book Illustrators and Pre-Raphaelite Influences • The Transatlantic Poster Craze • Exhibiting the Pre-Raphaelites in the Americas • Americans Collecting Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites • Selling Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts Goods Across the Atlantic • Pre-Raphaelite Imagery and American Advertising • The Morris Chair as a Transatlantic Object • Morris and American Needlework • American Dress Reform and Pre-Raphaelite Influence • The Pre-Raphaelites and the Literature of the Americas • Oscar Wilde Visits America • Whitman and the Pre-Raphaelites • Morris and American Socialism • Morris & Co. Stained Glass in the Americas • American Drama and Pre-Raphaelite Figures • Pre-Raphaelitism and American Art Education • Photography and the Circulation of Pre-Raphaelite Images • Pre-Raphaelitism and American Music
The deadline for 250- to 500-word proposals is 15th March 2010. Please forward electronic submissions to: Mark Samuels Lasner, marksl@udel.edu.
Limited funding may be available for speakers whose papers focus specifically on William Morris and who are in need of financial assistance. To be considered for support, explain your circumstances when submitting your paper proposal.
In addition to conference sessions, there will be a keynote lecture, demonstrations by leading practitioners who make and design Arts and Crafts objects, special exhibitions, and related film, theater, and musical performances. The following exhibitions are anticipated at the time of the conference: Delaware Art Museum ("May Morris," also permanent display of the Samuel and Mary Bancroft Pre-Raphaelite collection); University of Delaware Library (American literature, 1870-1916 exhibition and "William Morris"); University Gallery, University of Delaware ("Ethel Reed: Transatlantic Artist of the 1890s"); Winterthur (Arts and Crafts archival resources); and Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts ("David Mabb: The Morris Kitsch Archive").
For more information go to www.morrissociety.org or contact Mark Samuels Lasner, (302) 831-3250, marksl@udel.edu.
"Useful and Beautiful" is supported by the Delaware Art Museum, Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, the William Morris Society in the United States, the William Morris Society (UK), and the following University of Delaware departments and programs: College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Delaware Library, Art, Art Conservation, Art History, English, History, and Material Culture Studies.
Popular Sex: Media and Sexuality in Germany in the Early 20th Century
To be held at the University of Calgary, January 7-8, 2011 (tentative dates)
Organized by: - Annette Timm (Associate Professor of History, University of Calgary) - Michael Thomas Taylor (Assistant Professor of German, University of Calgary) - Rainer Herrn (Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Charité, and Magnus Hirschfeld Society)
Due date for submission of abstracts: 15th March 2010.
Please submit abstracts jointly to all three organizers at atimm@ucalgary.ca, mttaylor@ucalgary.ca, rainerherrn@gmx.de
We envision a workshop of 8-12 people meeting over the course of two days. Papers will be pre-circulated and presentations brief to foster discussion. We welcome contributions from across disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. The language of the conference will be English.
Around the turn of the nineteenth century in Germany, sex got popular. Emerging social movements for sexual reform, for women, homosexuals, and transvestites made demands that increased public awareness of previously ignored social realities and drew attention to diverse ‘sexual’ topics. And both the science of sexology (Sexualwissenschaft) and psychoanalysis accorded sexual discourse – in the form of intimate confessions – a public circulation and legitimacy unlike that evinced by earlier forms of pornography, titillating wares, or published discussions of sex. New themes included the emancipation of women, the decriminalization of homosexuality and transvetitism, new concerns about birth rates and education about venereal disease, the legalization of abortion, and not least of all sexually charged, eugenic notions of race and the Volk. These controversial public discussions formed the horizon for political scandals, for public accusations and trials, for political agitation and scientific propaganda, and for the commercialization of sex. Although governments continued to regulate the popularization of sex, it transformed notions of public and private, of sexual behavior and health, and of gender norms, and thus decisively contributed to the development of modern popular culture.
We contend that a re-examination of this new popularity of sex in Germany will contribute significantly to understanding the origins of popular culture as a concept that is as ubiquitous in contemporary society and academic discourse as it is difficult to define. A growing body of recent work on the history of sexuality in Germany suggests the questions that we will ask. How did the popularization of sex both create and constrain possibilities for sexual expression and control? What role did it play in implementing policies in the spheres of eugenics, reproductive medicine and family welfare?
Our focus will be on forms of public representation and media as vehicles of this popularization. This includes the question of how newspapers, journals, fiction, propaganda, public lectures, radio, and films popularized new categories of sexual identity and expression. But we also want to know what role the popularization of sex played in the development of these forms of public representation. While our main focus will be on the period around 1900 and the following decades, we are also interested in understanding how public discourse about sex before and after this period relate to the popular significance of sex in Germany. Our approach will be inter-disciplinary: we will attempt to foster a dialogue between approaches concerned with cultural history, with visual arts and film, with the history of science, and with media theory.
Possible questions:
– How did the increasingly visual culture of this period relate to the mainly literary history of autobiography and confession out of which modern categories of sexuality emerged? – How did movements for political emancipation and the new visibility of sexual subcultures, as well as the political reactions they provoked, alter or influence the development of public representation? – What modes of censorship developed to regulate or prohibit the public representations of sex? Does this censorship redefine, challenge, or influence practices of censorship in general? – How did conceptual analogies shared by discourses of sexuality and media – such as production and reproduction or circulation and contact – structure the sexualization of public representation and the popularization of sexual discourse? – How did new discourses of sexuality in Germany influence advertising and commerce? What exactly does sex sell? – Does this history of sexuality and popular culture offer a new perspective on the power of Fascist aesthetics and politics? – In conclusion, how did the significance of sex for the development of public representation influence or change the meaning and function of ‘popular’ culture itself?
– Dr. Annette F. Timm Department of History University of Calgary 2500 University Drive N.W. Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada Tel: 403.220.6411 Fax: 403.289.8566 E-mail: atimm@ucalgary.ca.
THE SOUTHERN CONFERENCE ON BRITISH STUDIES 2010 MEETING
The Southern Conference on British Studies solicits proposals for its 2010 meeting to be held 5–7 November 2010 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The SCBS will meet in conjunction with the _Southern Historical Association_ (http://www.uga.edu/sha/) .
The SCBS construes British Studies widely and invites participation by scholars in all areas of British history and culture, including the Empire or Commonwealth and the British Isles. Interdisciplinary approaches and proposals which focus broadly on teaching British studies are especially welcome. Proposals may consist of individual papers or of papers grouped for a session. For session proposals, two, or, preferably, three papers should relate to a common theme, not necessarily bound by the usual chronological framework.
For each paper proposed, please submit an abstract of 200 to 300 words, indicating the thesis of the paper, the sources and methodology employed in research, and how it enhances or expands knowledge of its subject. Papers should have a reading time of 20–25 minutes. Also, please submit a curriculum vitae for each participant. PROPOSALS SHOULD BE POSTMARKED BY 15 MARCH 2010 AND MAILED TO:
Dr. William Anthony Hay, Department of History, P.O. Box H, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762. Inquiries are welcome at _wilhay6248@aol.com_ (mailto:wilhay6248@aol.com) , but please do not send proposals by email or fax.
Victorians and the East
15th Annual Visawus
The conference will focus on the complex relationships between the Victorians and the East, including India and China, Malaya and the East Indies, Australia and New Zealand, and the South Sea Islands. This international conference will bring together specialists in Asian and Victorian art history, literature, gender studies, science, history, literature, politics, and biographical studies, among others, to explore how the Victorians perceived the East, and how they were perceived in the East. We invite paper proposals (300 word abstract plus 1-page CV) on political, cultural, social, religious, artistic, scientific, economic, agrarian, and other aspects of this rich interaction.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
Investors and the East Indigenous Women and English Men; * Australia in literature Art and the South Seas; * South Seas and Paradise The marketing of Australia; * Malays and the Anthropologists The East and the Crystal Palace; * The East and the Military Clash of Cultures and Ecological Destruction; * Settling in the South Seas The South Seas and World Naval Politics; * Cannibals and Paradise The Empire in Australian Schools; * Sex and the Sailor Imperial Vision of the Maori; * Island Kings and the British Empress Women Travelers in Oceania and the East; * Robert Louis Stevenson and Hawaii The Scots in the Islands; * For a complete CFP and more information about the conference and visawus, please see our web site at www.visawus.org.
Deadline for abstracts to be emailed to Richard Fulton at Fulton@hawaii.edu is 19th March, 2010
Robert Louis Stevenson in the Pacific
I’m seeking paper proposals from scholars in art history, ethnography, gender studies, history, literature, politics, and science for a panel on Robert Louis Stevenson, and his life and writings in the Pacific Islands. This panel forms part of the conference on ‘Oceania and the East in the Victorian Imagination,’ organized by the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States, taking place on 28th–30th October 2010 in Honolulu, HI.
Papers might treat topics including, but not limited to, the following:
* Postcolonial Stevenson; * Stevenson and the Feminine; * Pacific Writings and Stevenson’s Critical Reputation; * Stevenson and Nineteenth-Century Racial Theory: * Serialization, Periodicals, and Stevenson’s Pacific Writings; * Stevenson’s Representations of Indigenous Peoples; * Pacific Eden: Romance vs. Realism; * Exploration Narratives and Stevenson’s Pacific; * Non-Fiction Illustrations of Stevenson’s Works; * Stevenson and the Literature of the Sea; * Photographs of Stevenson’s Pacific; * Stevenson as Ethnographer; * Literary Collaboration and Stevenson’s Writings; * Stevenson as Travel Writer
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Jane Samson, History, University of Alberta, author of Imperial Benevolence: Making British Authority in the Pacific Islands, Race and Empire, editor of The British Empire, British Imperial Strategies in the Pacific, 1750-1900 and Pacific Empires.
Pacific Beach Hotel, 2490 Kalakaua Ave, Honolulu, HI 96815 http://www.pacificbeachhotel.com
Email 300-word abstracts and one-page vitas (with name and email address on both documents) to Arnold Anthony Schmidt at aschmidt@csustan.edu by 19th March 2010. For additional information, visit www.VISAWUS.org.
Arnold Anthony Schmidt, Ph.D. Professor of English California State University http://www.csustan.edu/ENGLISH/schmidt/schmidt.htm
Transgression and its Limits
29-30th May 2010 University of Stirling
Plenary Speaker: Professor Fred Botting Reading followed by Q&A Session: Iain Banks
To discover the complete horizon of a society's symbolic values, it is also necessary to map out its transgressions, its deviants ~ Marcel Détienne.
Rule-breaking has always been a central aspect of literary and cultural development. The works of Marquis de Sade, William Burroughs and Kathy Acker help define the canon of transgressive fiction, while Bakhtin, Bataille and Foucault have become its philosophers and apologists. From the law-breaking obscenity of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover to the immorality of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, transgressive art has offended the old order for the sake of a new.
The commodification of extreme horror in recent movies and the faux- antagonism of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk both reveal the paradox of a transgression which has now established its own conventions. Is transgression more than the tradition of subverting tradition? Have the conditions of post-modernity exhausted our ability to be shocked?
The aim of this conference is to provide an interdisciplinary forum to consider transgressive tactics in literature, film, critical theory and other cultural productions. To what extent has transgression helped shape sexual, cultural and artistic landscapes of its own period? We invite abstracts for 20-minute papers focusing on transgressive, taboo-breaking and politically resistant acts in literature and the arts.
Possible topics may include (but are not limited to): § Violence § Profanity § The Sacred § Sexuality and the body § Obscenity and pornography § Aberrance, Fetish, Perversion § The New Horror - 'torture porn' § Avant-garde cinema, Cinema of Transgression § The Carnivalesque § Gender roles § Censorship - cultural reactions to transgressive texts § Violence against the text - formal/textual transgression § Postmodernism's transgression of the high/low cultural divide
Please send a 300-word abstract and a 50-word biography to Aspasia Stephanou, Matthew Foley and Neil McRobert at transgression@stir.ac.uk by 19th March 2010.
www.transgression.stir.ac.uk
Culture, Theory & Critique : Interdisciplinarity
In recent years interdisciplinarity has become a key dimension in the formulation and assessment of research. And indeed one of the main elements in Culture, Theory and Critique’s statement of aims is the exploration of the interface between disciplines. It is therefore opportune to devote an issue to what is meant by and what is at stake in the notion and practice of interdisciplinarity. In autumn 2010 we intend to publish a number of essays on the topic and suggest various questions amongst others which might be considered:
· What are the factors which explain the recent surge of interest in interdisciplinarity in the humanities? Why has it become a significant part of the discourse not only of researchers themselves but also of research managers and funders?
· What is the relationship between distinct disciplines and interdisciplinarity?
· How stable are the existing disciplines and how do they respond to the interest in interdisciplinarity? Are there serious risks of incoherence deriving from the opening of disciplinary boundaries?
· References to ‘interdisciplinarity’ often mean expanding the realm of objects that a discipline can treat without expanding the parameters of the discipline’s theory and methodology. How can an interdisciplinarity that truly challenges disciplinary assumptions be articulated and what is the status of the object of study in such a programme?
· Can interdisciplinarity really operate in between disciplines or is it only ever a term used to account for work which draws from more than one disciplinary field?
· What are the benefits of interdisciplinary research? Is it in any sense inherently more probing and comprehensive simply because it combines different angles of analysis?
· What are the conceptual and institutional differences between interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity?
· How does interdisciplinarity function in different research domains? Do the sciences and humanities conceive the practice differently and what might these broad domains learn from the other’s approach?
Culture, Theory and Critique welcomes theoretical essays on the theme of interdisciplinarity and critical analyses of particular examples of its practice. Essays should be submitted for consideration by the end of March 2010.
For further information about the journal visit: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/RCTC and click on the Instruction for Authors tab.
Contemporary British Theatre: Towards a New Canon
16th October 2010
Hosted by the School of English, Birmingham City University
Confirmed speakers include: Prof. Dan Rebellato (Royal Holloway, University of London); Dr Chris Megson (Royal Holloway, University of London); Dr Graham Saunders (University of Reading); Dr Aleks Sierz (Rose Bruford College, Boston University London branch)
The conference seeks to address representational trends and practices in post-1995 British theatre. It will examine the work of playwrights who produced their most influential plays during the last fifteen years and changed the face of contemporary British theatre, contributing to the development of new playwriting traditions in the UK. The conference will shed light on how these playwrights can be seen as belonging to a new canon, which is redefining extant notions of theatre and representation.
Proposals for papers are now invited. Topics may include (but are not limited to):
· Influential plays and playwrights
· Responding to social change: new issues for British theatre
· Renegotiating form, content and genre: testing the boundaries of representation
· New political theatre(s)
· Contemporary British theatre and Europe: influences, exchanges, aesthetics
· Contemporary British theatre and gender
· Contemporary British theatre and national identity
· Specific theatres, artistic directors and repertoire choices
Proposals of 250-300 words should be sent to Dr Vicky Angelaki, conference organizer, at vicky.angelaki@bcu.ac.uk, by 31st March 2010.
Dr Vicky Angelaki, Lecturer in English and Drama, School of English, Faculty of Performance, Media and English, Birmingham City University
Note: Paper proposals dealing with Oscar Wilde as a vehicle for the ideas of Stoppard, Ravenhill, Eagleton, Hare etc are expressly welcome, Dr Angelaki writing as follows:
Thank you very much for your e-mail and this very interesting take on the conference subject. I appreciate your help with circulating this CFP and shall definitely write to you should I receive paper proposals with content related to the one you mention. It would be wonderful to have scholars working in these areas present at the conference. Details regarding registration etc. will be communicated in due course.
By the Numbers
The Victorians Institute, NINES, and the University of Virginia Department of English announce a call for papers for By the Numbers, a conference to be held October 1-3, 2010 in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia. The deadline is 31st March, 2010. The keynote speaker will be Daniel Cohen.
Please see the website at http://www.nines.org/VIC2010/ for details on the conference, the theme, and the way to submit proposals.
Alison Booth Department of English University of Virginia
Utopian Studies Society (Europe) 11th International Conference
7-10 July 2010
THE SPECTERS OF UTOPIA
Proposals are invited for papers of 20 minutes on different aspects of utopias, dystopias, utopianism, and anti-utopianism as they manifest themselves in politics, society, economics, art, and culture. The conference language is English. Sessions conducted in other languages are also possible (minimum 2 papers). Submit abstracts (approx. 250 words) by e-mail as file attachments in MS WORD to L.Gruszewska-Blaim@ug.edu.pl. These should include: 1. name and affiliation 2. e-mail address, title of paper 3. abstract 4. 3 keywords 5. multimedia requirements 6. schedule restrictions Deadline for abstracts: 31st March 2010
Lublin lies in the southeastern Poland a hundred miles from Warsaw. The campus is situated very close to the city's historic centre. The nearest international airport is Warsaw. Trains run every two hours from Warsaw Central Railway Station to Lublin (journey time 2.5 hrs). There are also inexpensive bus services from the center of Warsaw to Lublin. We may provide a shuttle from Warsaw Airport to the campus on the day before the conference.
The registration fee will be 190 Euro, to include tea, coffee, buffet lunches and two evening receptions. Details of hotels will be available nearer the conference date. The Utopian Studies Society has limited funds available to assist post-graduates with the expenses of attending the Society’s annual conference. If we accept your paper, and you would like more details or an application form, please contact the USS Secretary, Lorna.Davidson@newlanark.org.
Deadline for registration: 30 May 2010. Late registrations will be accepted up to 7 days prior to the conference at additional cost of 40 Euro.
Arrangements for registration will be announced in due course.
The conference website: www.utopia2010.umcs.lublin.pl
April
Reweaving the Rainbow: Literature and Philosophy 1850-1910
University of Exeter, 10th - 11th September 2010
Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. Michael Wood (Princeton)
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine --
Unweave a rainbow...
–(Keats, Lamia, 229-237)
John Keats' famous indictment illustrates the historically ambivalent encounter between literature and 'cold' philosophy. In the decades that followed, this relationship was to enter a new phase, as each field sought to redefine itself to befit the emerging conditions of modernity. Yet even as the endeavour to explore philosophical issues and the influence of philosophical discourses burgeoned in novels, poetry and essays, the separate institutionalisation of philosophy and English literature in universities from the early 1890s pulled these most intimately related 'disciplines' apart.
This interdisciplinary two-day conference will explore the vicissitudes of influence, appropriation, interaction and disciplinarity in 'English literature' and 'philosophy'. It will address the ways in which literature is philosophical and philosophy is literary, and how their interactions evolved in the course of this period. We are seeking to raise a range of issues including, but not limited to:
* How novels and poetry exploit the philosophical potentialities of literary form, including the treatment and expansion of philosophical issues such as ethics and epistemology in literary works (e.g. Henry James' empiricism, Wilde's aphorisms)
* The influence of philosophers on literary writers (eg. Feuerbach and Eliot, Ancient Greek philosophy and Arnold, Nietzsche and Vernon Lee)
* Intellectual and literary culture in Britain (eg. the Classics in Oxford, the British Hegelians, the rise of Positivism, the persistence of Romantic philosophies)
* The philosophy of literature and the arts (eg. Ruskin, George Moore, Arthur Symons)
* The way that science influenced philosophical discourses in essays, novels and poetry (eg. evolution and ethics, Hardy and social Darwinism)
The deadline for submission of abstracts is 2nd April 2010. Please send an abstract of around 300 words and a brief biography to Dr. Kate Hext and EII Research Fellow Alice Barnaby at k.hext@ex.ac.uk no later than this date. Questions and comments are also welcome!
Documenting History, Documenting Progress : Nineteenth Century Photographs of Architecture
International Symposium
3rd–4th October, 2010
Held during the exhibition of Snite Collection photographs of nineteenth century architecture at the Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame (September 5 – October 31, 2010)
This symposium is a collaboration between the Snite Museum at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, and Indiana University South Bend. It will bring together scholars who study nineteenth century photography of architecture.
Heavily represented in collections of nineteenth century photographs, architectural photography provides inroads into major themes of the period: industry and technology, exploration and exoticism, documentation and preservation, history and nationalism, etc. However, most histories of photography use the progressive development of the medium as the organizing structure for the presentation of the material. Architecture lent itself to the long exposure times required by the early photographic processes and was used extensively as subject by the first generation of photographers. A genuine understanding of the first decades of architectural photography needs to account for the relevant technical parameters of production but also demands that each photographic image of architecture be studied as a primary visual document and an aesthetic object. It is the investigation of this multi-faceted enquiry that is invited in this symposium on nineteenth-century architectural photography.
Abstracts for papers with a thematic approach to the study of nineteenth century photography of architecture are invited from established and junior scholars. Authors of selected papers will have the opportunity to participate in the publication of the symposium proceedings. Some assistance with travel expenses and a modest honorarium are funded for symposium speakers.
Please send a 400-word abstract and a short CV (up to 3 pages) to Micheline Nilsen, Indiana University South Bend, NS033E, 1700 Mishawaka Avenue, South Bend, IN 46634-7111 USA, 001-574-520-4277, e-mail: mnilsen@iusb.edu. Electronic submissions are preferred. Deadline: 15th April 2010. Notification to speakers will be made by May 15, 2010. Final drafts of papers will be requested by September 1, 2010.
This project is partially supported by Indiana University’s New Frontiers in the Arts & Humanities Program, funded by the Office of the President and administered by the interim Vice President for Research and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and by the Snite Museum of the University of Notre Dame.
Micheline Nilsen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Art History, NS033E, Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts, Indiana University South Bend, 1700 Mishawaka Avenue, South Bend, IN 46634-7111. 574-520-4277. mnilsen@iusb.edu.
Midwest Conference on British Studies 56th Annual Meeting
October 8-10, 2010, Cleveland
The Midwest Conference on British Studies is proud to announce that its fifty-sixth annual meeting will be hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel.
The MWCBS seeks papers from scholars in all fields of British Studies, broadly defined to include those who study England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Britain's empire. We welcome scholars from the broad spectrum of disciplines, including but not limited to history, literature, political science, gender studies and art history. Proposals for complete sessions are preferred, although proposals for individual papers will be considered.
Especially welcome are roundtables and panels that:
· offer cross-disciplinary perspectives on topics in British Studies
· discuss collaborative or innovative learning techniques in the British Studies classroom
· situate the arts, letters, and sciences in a British cultural context
· examine representations of British and imperial/Commonwealth national identities
· consider Anglo-American relations, past and present
· examine new trends in British Studies
· assess a major work or body of work by a scholar
The MWCBS also invites submissions for a special panel engaging David Cressy’s work on religion and ritual in early modern England. Professor Cressy will serve as respondent for this session.
The MWCBS welcomes papers presented by advanced graduate students and will award the Walter L. Arnstein Prize at its plenary luncheon for the best graduate student paper(s) given at the conference.
Proposals should include a 200-word abstract for each paper and a brief, 1-page c.v. for each participant, including chairs and commentators. For full panels, please include a brief 200-word preview of the panel as a whole. In addition, please place the panel proposal, and its accompanying paper proposals and vitas in one file. Please make certain that all contact information, particularly email addresses are correct and current. All proposals should be submitted online by 15th April 2010, to the Program Committee Chair, Rick Incorvati, at rincorvati@wittenberg.edu <mailto:rincorvati@wittenberg.edu>.
Carol Engelhardt Herringer Associate Professor of History Director, Social Science Education Program Wright State University Dayton, OH 45435 USA 937-775-3869
ANGLES 2: INTERDISCIPLINARY POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE ON CULTURAL HISTORY
Birkbeck, University of London Saturday 19th June 2010
Following the success of the first Angles conference in 2009, we are returning in 2010 with another one-day event and the launch of an online network for research students working in the field of cultural history.
The aim of the conference is to bring together a range of postgraduate perspectives on cultural history from across the disciplinary spectrum. The focus will be on unusual topics or unconventional approaches to otherwise familiar topics. For instance, papers might deal with cultural practices that have been neglected by traditional history, or engage with emerging fields, trends or themes that may have been overlooked by existing scholarship. We would especially welcome papers that reflect on the challenges of dealing with discipline-specific responses to the way in which you approach your topic, or the particular advantages or limitations of taking on an unusual topic.
We invite all interested contributors to submit proposals for 20 minute papers. Please send a 200 word abstract, including your name, designation, institutional affiliation and thesis title (if applicable) to angles.postgrad@gmail.com no later than Saturday 17th April 2010.
Thanks to funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), we are able to offer six travel bursaries of up to £50 each to enable research students from outside London to attend the conference. We will be receiving applications for the bursaries when registration for the conference opens in May.
The online network will launch in late April 2010.
Co-organisers: Rachel Richardson, Thomas Turner, James Emmott (Birkbeck)
School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London / www.bbk.ac.uk/arts Department of History, Classics and Archaeology / www.bbk.ac.uk/hca London Consortium / www.londonconsortium.com
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/angles
Angles is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
· Each year the AHRC provides funding from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and dance. Only applications of the highest quality and excellence are funded and the range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. For further information on the AHRC, please see www.ahrc.ac.uk
ORDER AND CHAOS
SDN Postgraduate Conference
Saturday, 18th September 2010,
Maison Française d’Oxford
We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers, in either English or French, treating aspects of the conference theme in relation to nineteenth-century French and Francophone culture, history and art history. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
-Forming the Canon / marginal writing -The carefully crafted text / the chaos of writing (including genetic criticism) -War and the Military -The savage / the civilised -Scientific theories: the classification of nature and man -Man VS nature -New social orders (to include utopianist thought, collectivism, individualism) -Censorship  -Crime and Punishment -Law and Order -(Dis)ordering the mind: reason and insanity -Order and instability in politics -Constructing and undoing gender
Keynote speaker: Professor Mary Orr, University of Southampton; ‘Ordering Chaos: Intertextuality and the Natural Sciences in Nineteenth-Century France’
Proposals (200-250 words) should be sent to the conference organiser: manon.mathias@trinity.ox.ac.uk, by 30th April 2010.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
L’ORDRE ET LE DÉSORDRE
SDN Postgraduate Conference
Samedi, le 18 septembre 2010,
Maison Française d’Oxford
La conférence doctorale de la Société des dix-neuviémistes est de retour cette année avec un colloque sur le thème de « L’ordre et le désordre », qui aura lieu le samedi 18 septembre 2010 à la Maison Française d’Oxford. Nous invitons les doctorants à soumettre des propositions pour des communications de 20 minutes, soit en anglais, soit en français. Les sujets abordés pourront relever de toute approche des études sur le dix-neuvième siècle français et francophone. La liste suivante peut servir de point de départ:
-La construction du canon / l’écriture marginale -La construction du texte / le chaos de l’écriture (dans la critique génétique, par exemple) -La guerre et l’armée -L’homme sauvage / l’homme civilisé -Les théories scientifiques: la classification de la nature et de l’homme -L’homme contre la nature  -Les nouveaux ordres sociaux (dont la pensée utopiste, le collectivisme, l’individualisme) -La censure -Le crime et le châtiment -L’ordre public -La raison et la folie -L’ordre et l’instabilité politique -La construction et la déconstruction de la féminité et de la masculinité
Intervenante principale: Professor Mary Orr, University of Southampton ‘Ordering Chaos: Intertextuality and the Natural Sciences in Nineteenth-Century France’
Les propositions (de 200 à 250 mots) doivent être envoyées à l’organisatrice du colloque: manon.mathias@trinity.ox.ac.uk, avant le 30 avril 2010.
L'adresse administrative: k.s.griffiths@swansea.ac.uk
MAY
Nineteenth Century Feminisms: Press and Platform
Special Issue on ‘Nineteenth Century Feminisms: Press and Platform’ in Nineteenth Century Gender Studies (www.ncgsjournal.com)
Guest Edited by Susan Hamilton (University of Alberta) and Janice Schroeder (Carleton University).
Deadline for completed submissions: 1st May 2010
Historian Barbara Caine has suggested that women's political writing - from speeches and platform addresses to essays, newspaper editorials, and broadsheets – tends to be assessed primarily as part of specific political campaigns rather than approached as specific forms of writing. Recent scholarship on women's political work as journalists, including writers such as Elizabeth Banks, Frances Power Cobbe, Harriet Martineau, Margaret Oliphant, and Eliza Lynn Linton, has begun to address this oversight, paving the way for new contributions to this field. At the same time, broadly-based research on women and the literary politics of anonymity and signature, women's work as editors of both large and small-scale publications, and accounts of individual periodicals and the production of ‘women's space,’ suggests the need for more investigations into the gendered culture of nineteenth-century print journalism. This special issue calls for papers addressing the relations between nineteenth-century feminisms (broadly defined) and the press, including the public culture of speaking, clubbing and organizing which often turned to the press as a critical tool. Possible questions include:
* How do we define what counts as ‘political’ when we approach women's contributions to the nineteenth century press? * How did the press help make modern feminism? How did modern feminism help make the press? * How does the multiple serial forms of the 19thC press shape feminist argument and strategy? * How did women's writing for the press help to re-shape the emerging profession of journalism but also public culture in a broad sense? How did women's journalism help shape what counts as ‘the public,’ or as ‘a public?’ * How were nineteenth-century gender politics, or specifically a feminist politics, continually reimagined in and by the press? * What kinds of ‘female spaces’ were created within the larger networks of print journalism? * What kinds of feedback loops existed between women's writing for the press and other forms of public engagement, such as public speaking, clubbing, teaching, missionary work, and political organizing? * Who were the women readers of nineteenth-century newspapers and magazines? How did their acts of reading help make the press and nineteenth century public culture? * What is the relationship between women's writing, feminist politics, and mass and/or popular culture? What can we learn about this relationship from the Victorian press? * What was the role of male editors, journalists, and mentors in shaping a feminist press and a feminist public?
Complete submissions (full length manuscripts between 5000-8000 words following MLA style; no abstracts please) and one-paragraph bios should be emailed as Microsoft Word attachments to: Dr. Susan Hamilton (susan.hamilton@ualberta.ca) or Dr. Janice Schroeder (janice_schroeder@carleton.ca) by 1st May 2010. To facilitate the review process, please send two files-one with your article absent of all identifying information and another with your brief biographical note.
vexed encounters
Novels, says Samuel Johnson in an essay in The Rambler, ‘are written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and instructions into life.’ Nineteenth-century novels shouldered that didactic mission with particular force and authority. To what extent do they still exert that authority over us today?
We are seeking 300-500-word abstracts for personal essays about vexed encounters with nineteenth-century fiction. Specific examples might include over-identification with a particular character; internalization of a particular character or plotline as a cautionary tale; a sense of being rebuked or oppressed by a particular novelist; a sense of reverence that's deeply entangled with frustration at a novel's sexism, racism, or classism; or a sense of having been groomed by nineteenth-century fiction to inhabit a world that simply doesn't exist.
While scholarly approaches to the novels themselves are welcome, these should be first- person essays, more in the style of creative nonfiction than traditional scholarship. For a sample, see http://www.thecommonreview.org/fileadmin/template/tcr/pdf/EdWatch64.pdf.
We welcome abstracts from scholars, creative writers, and others. Send abstracts by 1st May to Leslie Haynsworth at haynswor@mailbox.sc.edu and Maria LaMonaca at m_lamonaca@hotmail.com.
Steampunk! The Popular Version of Neo-Victorianism
A One-Day Conference hosted by the Victorian Steampunk Society,
11th September, 2010
Lincoln Castle and Lawns, Lincoln, England
The Conference aims to explore the rising popularity of Steampunk and to consider its place in the wider field of Neo-victorianism and Neo-Victorian Studies.
This conference is unique in that it takes place alongside the ‘Weekend at the Asylum’ festival which will attract up to one thousand active steampunks to the beautiful and historic City of Lincoln.  This makes it the perfect opportunity to meet and talk to some of the leading figures in this aspect of Neo-Victorianism.   The conference will run from 10am to 5pm on Saturday 11th September and will be held in the Victorian Annex of Lincoln Castle.  There will be an opportunity for delegates to explore the Victorian Courtroom and cell block which are preserved there as well as the rest of the Castle itself.
The conference will begin with a chance to meet and chat with other delegates before an introductory address by John Naylor, Chair of the Victorian Steampunk Society.  The day will consist of five panels. Each panel will have two speakers and a chair.  Speakers are asked to offer a fifteen to twenty minute presentation allowing time for questions from the floor and further discusssion.
The organisers are seeking six speakers for the three afternoon panels.  We solicit proposals of not more than 250 words to be submitted to John Naylor (majortinker@aol.com) by 1st May 2010. Possible topics might include:
Steampunk fiction and poetry — Steampunk in popular film and media — The aesthetics of steampunk — Steampunk and Neo-Victorianism — International Steampunk — The politics of "techno-anachrofetishism" — Steampunk and DIY — Nostalgia, re-enactment and remembrance — Steampunk and science fiction — Steampunk and music — Steampunk, gender and Class — Steampunk manifestoes.
The conference will be brought to a close with a short plenary session and finish at 5pm.
Light refreshments will be provided but the conference does not plan to include lunch since we suspect delegates will want to explore some of the steampunk features which will be in the castle over the festival weekend.  There are of course catering facilities in the Castle.   Registration is free but places are very strictly limited to just fifty.  Delegates are strongly advised to book their place as quickly as they are able.  Delegates will also be able to purchase subsidised tickets for the Asylum Steampunk Festival although several features will be open to delegates at no charge .  We hope that this will be the first in a series of annual conferences on Steampunk and Neo-Victorianism and look forward to welcoming you to Lincoln.
Dr Christine Ferguson, Department of English Literature, 5/302 University Gardens, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ, c.ferguson@englit.arts.gla.ac.uk,
2010 College Art Association Conference
Women, Femininity, and Public Space in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture
Chairs: Temma Balducci, Arkansas State University and Heather Belnap Jensen, Brigham Young University
It is tantamount to scripture that genteel women of the nineteenth century were associated exclusively with the spaces of domesticity. While recent scholarship on the flâneuse has gone some way toward challenging this assumption, our session is premised on the notion that the descriptor flâneuse does not adequately capture the myriad positions available to bourgeois women vis-à-vis the public sphere. We are seeking proposals that engage with the specificity of women’s activities outside the home and other conventional spaces of femininity. What venues and mechanisms facilitated women¹s participation in public culture? In what ways did their activities shape notions of gender and public space? From a historiographic standpoint, what is the continued lure of the separate spheres ideology for art historians?
Please submit an abstract and CV by 8th May 2010 by email to both tbalducci@astate.edu and heather_jensen@byu.edu or by mail to: Heather Belnap Jensen 3122 JKB Department of Visual Arts, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602
For the Table of Contents, click | To hub page | To THE OSCHOLARS home page