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A monthly page advertising Conference and Journal Calls, of interest or potential interest to our readers.
Please contact us if you would like a Call for Papers included here.
page updated 31st August 2010
For the Table of Contents, click | To hub page | To THE OSCHOLARS home page
Beginning with the Spring, 2010 issue, The Victorian Newsletter has offered 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.
New Woman, Theatre, and Art History calls will be found respectively in our sections , and VISIONS . Click their logo’s to reach them.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
This month’s additions are marked
Amateur Performance in the Long Nineteenth Century		Money/Myths
American Literary Tourism		Naples Crucible of the World
Anarchism		Nineteenth-Century Literature
Between Light and Darkness – International Symposium on Fin-de-siècle Symbolism		Representations of Age in European Literatures
British women poets and their experimentations		Revisiting the Past, Recasting the Present: The Reception of Greek Antiquity in Music, 19th Century to the Present
Carmen and her others		Queer History
Cultural Identities in the Victorian Periodical Press		Shaw
Decadent Poetics		Social History
Dirt and Debris		Systems and Archives
Disability and the Victorians		Taking Care of Business: Money, Property and Victorian Culture
The Female Performer in European fiction (1780-1914): gender issues		Theatricality and Performance in Victorian Literature and Culture
French Historical Studies		The Trollope Family and Tuscany
Future Wars, Imagined Wars		Victorian Bodies and Machines
Gissing		Victorian Ecology
Imaginary Artists		Victorian Epidemics
Katherine Mansfield and her Contemporaries		Walter Pater's Poetics
Literary Dislocations
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NO DATE
I Trollope: una famiglia di scrittori e la Toscana
Fondazione Michel de Montaigne Piazza Jean Varraud, n.9 - C.P. 64 55022 Bagni di Lucca www.fondazionemontaigne.it info@fondazionemontaigne.it
Il convegno I Trollope: una famiglia di scrittori e la Toscana (23-24 ottobre 2010), organizzato dalla Fondazione Montaigne con il contributo scientifico delle Università di Pisa e Venezia Ca’ Foscari, nonché della “Trollope Society” londinese, si propone di studiare i rapporti di una famiglia di letterati inglesi con la nostra regione e, in particolare, Bagni di Lucca. L’iniziativa è la continuazione ideale di precedenti convegni di vasta risonanza, dedicati negli anni scorsi a Montaigne e Lever, a Ouida e ai Browning, solo alcuni dei personaggi che scelsero la località termale per i loro soggiorni.
Frances “Fanny” Trollope, nata nel 1780 a Bristol, visse a lungo a Firenze, dove morì nel 1863, e dove rimasero famose le sue réunions settimanali, nel “Villino Trollope” dell’attuale Piazza Indipendenza, cui partecipavano esponenti di spicco della cultura anglo-fiorentina. Grande viaggiatrice in Europa e in America, Fanny Trollope ebbe sei figli, due dei quali, Anthony e Thomas Adolphus, furono anch’essi scrittori di fama; ma anche altri membri della famiglia si dedicarono alla scrittura.
Una sua esperienza negli Stati Uniti le permise di pubblicare un volume assai caustico, Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), che divenne ben presto un best-seller. Fra i suoi numerosi lavori - oltre una quarantina fra romanzi e libri di viaggio - si ricordano The Widow Barnaby e Petticoat Government, oltre a The Vicar of Wrexill del 1837, suo contributo alle controversie religiose del periodo, e The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy del 1840, uno dei primi romanzi vittoriani che trattano di problematiche sociali, legate all’impatto della Rivoluzione Industriale.
Nel primo volume di A Visit to Italy, un libro di viaggio in forma epistolare, pubblicato a Londra, da Richard Bentley, nel 1842, la scrittrice dedica numerose pagine alla Toscana.
Thomas Adolphus Trollope (1810-1892) fu educato alla Harrow School e al Winchester College. Tra il 1840 e il 1890 produsse una sessantina di volumi di letteratura di viaggio, storia e narrativa, oltre a una grande quantità di articoli in periodici. Trascorse in Italia la maggior parte della sua vita, per tornare nel 1890 in Inghilterra, dove morì due anni dopo. Le sue memorie, pubblicate in tre volumi fra il 1887 e il 1889, contengono ampie sezioni sui nostri luoghi.
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), il più famoso esponente della famiglia - riformatore del sistema postale britannico e inventore della pillar box, la colonnina postale di colore rosso che caratterizza città e villaggi britannici – fu, al pari di Lever, Collins e Dickens, uno dei romanzieri più prolifici e amati dell'epoca vittoriana. I suoi capolavori, noti come Chronicles of Barsetshire, ambientati nell’immaginaria Contea del Barset, affrontano importanti tematiche politiche e sociali dell'epoca. La sua Autobiografia è stata tradotta lo scorso anno per l’editore Sellerio il quale, oltre ai “romanzi giudiziari” Orley Farm e Lady Anna, ha pubblicato recentemente anche L’amministratore, Le torri di Barchester, Il dottor Thorne, La canonica di Framley, La casetta ad Allington. Altri titoli sono a disposizione dei lettori italiani presso le edizioni Passigli.
Contributi su ogni aspetto della vita e delle opere della famiglia Trollope saranno prese in considerazione. Particolarmente graditi saranno argomenti come “I Trollope e l’autobiografia”, “I Trollope e la narrativa popolare”, “I Trollope: legami con l’Italia / con la cultura fiorentina / con Bagni di Lucca”. Si prega di inviare un titolo provvisorio, accompagnato da un breve abstract, ad uno degli organizzatori:
Prof. Tony Bareham, cromwell3uk@yahoo.co.uk Prof. Marcello Cherubini (Presidente della Fondazione Montaigne), cherubini40@alice.it Prof. Mario Curreli, m.curreli@angl.unipi.it Prof. Franco Marucci, marucci@unive.it
Inserted July 2010
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september
Representations of Age in European Literatures
Forum for Modern Language Studies Special Issue: Call for articles
In her 1970 work about perceptions and representations of age in different cultures and literatures, 'La Vieillesse', Simone de Beauvoir remarked that ‘le vieillard n’est pas un bon héros de roman; il est achevé, figé, sans attente, sans espoir; pour lui les jeux sont faits’. Thinking more specifically about old women and the ways in which aging is different for them, Anne-Marie Houdebine-Gravaud has said that ‘le mot “vieillard” existe mais non le terme “vieillarde” [...] C’est qu’une femme ne devrait jamais vieillir’ (1999). Many writers have however quite deliberately placed older characters at the centre of their work and in 2006 two such novels in French met with commercial success (Benoite Groult, 'La Touche étoile', Héléna Marienské, 'Rhésus'). In this context, this Special Issue seeks to look at the ways in which age has been perceived and represented, both negatively and positively in European Literatures. Was Beauvoir right? What stereotypes about older people have been attacked or reinforced in literature? Have writers often seen age as a barrier between generations and how has the ‘generation gap’ been represented? What place is there/has there traditionally been in European literatures for older people? How is old age different/perceived as different for women? Have different cultures approached it in noticeably diverse ways?
Proposals for articles in English (300 words) should be sent to the guest editor Joy Charnley (j.charnley@phonecoop.coop) who will be happy to respond to any queries. Completed articles will need to be submitted by September 2010 and publication is planned for April 2011. Articles should be up to 5,000 words, including endnotes, and must conform to the FMLS stylesheet (see the FMLS website).
French Historical Studies
The 57th Annual Society for French Historical Studies conference will be held at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina from Thursday, February 10, through Saturday, February 12, 2011 and will be hosted by The Citadel. Featured speakers include Dena Goodman (University of Michigan) and Sylvain Venayre (Université de Paris I). Featured events include a plenary session and reception Friday evening at The Citadel and a banquet on Saturday evening. Additional outings on Sunday morning February 13 to Fort Sumter and Drayton Hall Plantation, will be organized.
The program committee will make every effort to combine single papers into coherent panels, but we encourage individuals to organize complete panels composed of two or (preferably) three papers, with a chair and commentator. Roundtables and other formats will also be considered.
Please do not send proposals for papers that have already been presented or that are scheduled for presentation at other conferences, or that have already been published. All conference participants must be members in good standing of SFHS at the time of the conference.
All sessions will be held at the Francis Marion Hotel in downtown Charleston. The hotel is steps away from restaurants, historical sites and museums. The special hotel rate will be $145.oo per night.
Please send proposals for panels or individual papers as MS-Word attachments to Joelle Neulander, President and chair of the program committee (joelle.neulander@citadel.edu) Proposals should include the following items, integrated into one file: an abstract (no more than 1 page) for each paper; a CV (no more than 1 page) for each presenter, including contact information; and the proposed chair’s and commentator’s name, affiliation, and email address.
Deadline for Proposals: 1st September 2010
Revisiting the Past, Recasting the Present: The Reception of Greek Antiquity in Music, 19th Century to the Present
BASEES Study Group for Russian and Eastern European Music Polyphonia Journal Hellenic Music Centre
Athens (Michael Cacoyannis Foundation), 1-3 July 2011
Conference website: www.athensconf2011.gateweb.gr
Greek antiquity has proved an inexhaustible source of inspiration throughout the history of Western ‘art’ music, endowing composers with a plethora of themes from its mythology and literary tradition; at the same time it has had a distinct impact on musical creativity itself through its cultural products: ancient Greek tragedy, poetry, as well as ancient Greek music itself (mainly, but not exclusively, through the study and use of its modes). The engagement with and interpretation of elements of ancient Greek culture in and through music reflect the specific historical, cultural and social context in which they have taken place; thus these mechanisms enable us to decode the particular relationships between the receiving audiences (artists, critics, listeners), their times and Greek antiquity. In this respect, the period stretching from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present is a most inviting case study, encompassing extensive historical, socio-political and cultural developments. During a period extending roughly from the Renaissance through to the Enlightenment, neo-classical themes had played a decisive role in the formation of modern European culture. However, the advent of Romanticism, with its apparent emphasis on vernacular themes, radically reframed the classical legacy. The beginning of the nineteenth century marked a new phase in Western perceptions of Greek antiquity, shaped by a number of historical, ideological and artistic factors, such as: the intensification of philhellenism in the wake of the Greek struggle for independence against the Turks; radical developments in archaeology, philology and the study of ancient history; the growing philhellenism in arts and literature; and the evocation of Greece in the narratives of national self-determination.. Likewise, the twentieth century has looked on the classical past with different eyes, whether through modernism’s search for the universal, post-modernism’s complex attitude to tradition and the inherited narratives of canonicity, or post-colonialism’s critique of myths about national identity and origins. The reception of the ancient Greek world has undoubtedly not been homogeneous throughout the centuries under consideration. This conference aims to explore the complex set of processes by which ancient Greek culture has been approached, (re)discovered and (re)interpreted in and through music, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. The conference invites the widest possible range of musicological approaches (including ethnomusicological and anthropological ones). Interdisciplinary papers – which may refer to literature, the arts, cinema, theatre, and so on – are especially encouraged. Although the conference addresses the reception of Greek, rather than Roman, antiquity, we welcome papers that would highlight the connection and dialogue between these two cultures, as well as between ancient Greek and other cultures. Similarly, papers that involve ancient Greek music should contribute to the exploration of the conference’s focus on modes of reception. We particularly encourage proposals on Greek music since the nineteenth century, and papers exploring the reception of Greek antiquity in Russian and Eastern European music. Nineteenth-century Russian theories of music that referred to ancient Greek modes, Symbolism, neo-classicism, as well as the employment of ancient Greek themes by composers such as Taneyev, Szymanowski and Enescu are only a few examples of the points of contact between Russian and Eastern European music with ancient Greek culture.
Proposals may address (but do not need to be limited to) the following aspects of the conference’s general theme:
-  The study and reception of Greek antiquity by composers, musicians, music theorists, artists in general, critics, audiences, institutions -  Historical, social, cultural, political, ideological, religious and artistic factors that have shaped various cases of reception of Greek antiquity -  Mythological references, their symbolisms and interpretations -  The role of tradition and innovation in the reception of Greek antiquity -  Nostalgia in the reception of Greek antiquity -  Exoticism in the reception of Greek antiquity -  Issues of identity construction (national, Greek, European, Western, Eastern) -  Devotion to or imitation of Greek antiquity and classical ideals associated with ancient Greece (‘Hellenism’) but also criticism or the rejection of the ancient Greek past -  The reception of Greek antiquity with reference to philosophy (e.g. Nietzsche, the Apollonian, the Dionysian elements) -  Greek antiquity on stage and screen: the ballet, opera, musical theatre, film -  The reception of Greek antiquity in theories of music -  Archaisms in compositional practice (e.g. modality) -  The reception of Greek antiquity with reference to traditional and popular music -  Issues of sexuality pertaining to the study of Greek antiquity and its reflection in music
The conference’s official language is English. Proposals for 20-minute papers (of no more than 300 words) and short biographical notes (of up to 200 words) should be sent toathensconf2011@gateweb.gr by 1st September 2010 (receipt of proposals will be acknowledged by e-mail). Abstracts will be reviewed and results will be announced by 30 October 2010. A selection of papers will be considered for publication in a book form. Conference fee: 50 Euros (Students are exempted. Efforts will be made by the conference organisers to secure funding that will allow us to waive the fee).
Keynote speakers: Prof. Jonathan Cross (University of Oxford), Dr Marina Frolova-Walker (University of Cambridge)
Confirmed speakers: Prof. Jim Samson (Royal Holloway, University of London) Prof. Ion Zotos (University of Athens)
Conference Committee: Dr Rosamund Bartlett, Dr Philip Bullock, Dr Katerina Levidou, Prof. Katy Romanou, Yannis Sabrovalakis, Dr George Vlastos
Money/Myths
32nd Annual Conference of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association
3-6 March 2011 at Arizona State University, Tempe & Phoenix, Arizona
How was money understood in the nineteenth century? in its global context? by laborers? How did the ideation of money evolve around and through art, music, race, nation, and empire? How did the stories told about money influence people and practices? What role do myths play in comprehending money? How were relations between people mediated by narratives of money? relations between nations? This theme would invite papers and panel proposals concerning
any aspect of money/myth during the long nineteenth century, including, but not limited to the “myths” or “realities” of trade, debt, industry and investment, economics, money-lending, poverty, consumer culture, class relations, race relations and their economic implications, gender politics, masculinity and femininity as shaped by/of money, sexual politics, sexuality and the law, aesthetics, art and art collecting, theater and performance politics, religion and wealth,
social service programs, education, travel, entertainment, sporting, financing and producing wealth through science, international connections and compacts, public/private divide, differential health care, class mobility, marriage, widowhood, inheritance, prostitution,
child rearing, infanticide, property politics, movements motivated by money (Chartism, socialism, communism, trades unions, reform), immigration, empire, war, and slavery. Equally welcome are paper and panel proposals concerning the processes of creating mythic structures around money including governmental campaigns, the publishing industry, legal processes, military campaigns, advertising, propaganda, and novelizations.
Abstracts (250 words) for 20 minute papers, author’s name and paper title in heading, with one page c.v. by 15th September 2010: Marlene Tromp, Program Chair, Denison University: nsca@denison.edu
Presenters will be notified by 15th December 2010.
Graduate students whose proposals are accepted can at that point submit a full-length version of the paper to compete for a travel grant to help cover transportation and lodging expenses. Registration and accommodation information available 15th November 2010 at http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/ncsa/index.html.
Keynote Speaker: Mary Poovey, Samuel Rudin University Professor of the Humanities, Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge and Department of English, New York University.
Future Wars, Imagined Wars: Towards a Cultural History of the pre-1914 Period.
Conference organized by the Centre International de Recherche de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre
in association with the German Historical Institute, Paris
9th–10th November 2011
and the participation of the Centre for First World War Studies, University of Birmingham.
[Version française ci-dessous]
Proposals are invited for papers to be given at the above conference. They should be no more than one page in length and sent to the Director of the Centre International de Recherche, Mme Caroline Fontaine (research@historial.org), by Monday, 13th September 2010. Proposals may be in English or French.
This conference stands at the crossroads of three trains of thought concerning the history of the Great War, each of them at once conceptual and empirical.
1. The cultural approach to the history of the war initially sought to recover the experiences of the conflict itself – its violence, its hidden dimensions (invasions, atrocities, occupations, prisoners-of-war, etc.). This involved dismantling the retrospective myths of the war in order to reconstitute the main experiences of the conflict in all their complexity – entries into war, life at the front, and so on. This same approach has also been applied to the consequences and legacies of the war, such as trauma, memory, commemoration, cultural demobilizations and remobilizations, etc.  However, a cultural historical approach has not yet been applied systematically to the pre-war period. The latter thus represents the last significant terrain to be explored from this point of view.
2. The pre-war period leading up to 1914 raises important conceptual questions. Because of the gulf between the immediate political and diplomatic causes of the Great War and the war’s unforeseen consequences, pre-war perspectives bore little relationship to the eventual experiences of the war, despite being a major determinant of them. Reconstituting the multiple senses of a future war, or wars, which existed before 1914 would thus contribute the final panel to an interpretative triptych of the Great War as a fundamental rupture in modern history – the future war, the war experienced, the war in retrospect.
3. For a long time the pre-war period dominated the historiography of the war in the form of the “responsibilities” question. Reactivated by the Fischer thesis in the 1960s and the debates to which that gave rise, this question has never entirely disappeared even if it ran out of steam in the 1990s by comparison with the dynamism of the new questions being proposed by the cultural history of the conflict. The “responsibility” for the outbreak of the war is a prime example of the classic tradition of military and political history, focused on questions of cause and consequence. Since cultural history has concerned itself more with experience and the multiple ways in which experience is constituted and transmitted, it has had less to say about causality, without ever totally ignoring it.
The reintegration of cultural with political and military history is currently emerging as one of the main challenges of historical writing and it poses precisely the question of the causal weight to be assigned to questions of experience, the imaginary and representations. A conference on the pre-war period is thus an ideal vehicle for addressing this challenge in its more general implications. What was the precise historical relationship between the causes of the war and these imagined future wars that never came about?
In order to explore these three lines of reflection, it is necessary to take into account the entire spectrum of possible causalities. The mental horizons and cultural and political assumptions of the principal actors (generals, political leaders) are firmly on the agenda. So, too, are the wars of the future as they were imagined by major literary figures and by the press. Equally important are the ways in which contemporaries understood the conflicts of the pre-war period, including the colonial dimension as a terrain for imagining future European conflicts, and the lessons they drew from them for future wars. The conference would also provide an opportunity to revisit the place of war in the imagined futures of different kinds of activist – nationalists, feminists, socialists, etc.
The nature of the subject (notably the importance of the Balkan Wars and Russia) offers the opportunity to include specialists of Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe and Russia. The same is true for Italy, given the significance of Futurism and the Italian-Turkish War of 1911-12. Countries such as Spain, which participated fully in the “pre-war” period (crisis and “generation” of 1898), though remaining neutral during the war itself, equally come within the ambit of the conference.
Programme.
1. Introduction: What is a “pre-war” period? What was the “pre-war” period of 1914?
2. The long pasts of future war.
3. War in the short-term future, 1899-1914.
4. International crises and the imminence of war, 1911-1913.
5. The crisis of July 1914
6. Epilogue: the arrival of the future, August-December 1914.
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Guerres futures, guerres imaginées:
Vers une histoire culturelle de l´avant 1914
APPEL A CONTRIBUTIONS
Colloque organisé par le
Centre International de Recherche de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre
en association avec l’Institut Historique Allemand de Paris
9-10 novembre 2011
et la participation du Centre for First World War Studies, University of Birmingham
Les propositions de communication, d’une page maximum, accompagnées d’un court curriculum vitae, devront être envoyées à la Directrice du Centre International de Recherche, Mme Caroline Fontaine (research@historial.org) avant le lundi 13 septembre 2010.
Les propositions sont acceptées en français et en anglais.
Ce colloque se situe au croisement de trois réflexions sur l’histoire de la Grande Guerre, toutes trois d’ordre conceptuel et empirique à la fois.
1. L’approche culturelle de l’histoire de la guerre s’est distinguée initialement par le souci de retrouver les expériences du conflit – ses violences, ses faces cachées (invasions, atrocités, occupations, prisonniers, etc.). Ainsi a-t-il fallu démanteler les mythes rétrospectifs afin de reconstituer dans toute leur complexité les expériences majeures du conflit - entrées en guerre, expériences combattantes, etc. Cette même approche a été appliquée aux conséquences et aux héritages de la guerre - traumatismes, mémoire, commémoration, démobilisations et remobilisations culturelles, etc. En revanche, l’approche par l´histoire culturelle n’a pas encore été appliquée de manière systématique à l’histoire de l’avant-guerre de 1914. Celle-ci constitue en effet le dernier grand terrain à défricher sous cet angle.
2. L’avant-guerre de 1914 pose des questions importantes, d’ordre conceptuel. Du fait de l’écart entre les causes immédiates, politiques et diplomatiques de la Grande Guerre avec les conséquences de celle-ci, les perspectives portant sur l’avenir avant 1914 ont peu en commun avec les expériences ultérieures du conflit. Et pourtant, elles ont lourdement pesé sur elles. Reconstituer les sens multiples de la guerre future ou des possibles guerres futures avant 1914 serait donc le dernier panneau du triptyque à mettre en place pour saisir la Grande Guerre en tant que rupture historique fondamentale (la guerre future, la guerre survenue, l’après-guerre).
3. L’Avant-guerre de 1914 a longtemps prédominé sur l’historiographie de la guerre elle-même, sous l’angle de  la question des « responsabilités ». Réanimé par la thèse de Fritz Fischer dans les années 1960, le débat ne s’est jamais estompé complètement, même si à partir des années 1990 il a perdu son dynamisme face, précisément, aux nouvelles questions proposées par l’histoire culturelle du conflit. La question des « responsabilités » était l’exemple même de la tradition classique de l’histoire militaire et politique (causes et conséquences). L’histoire culturelle en revanche, en se concentrant sur l’expérience et les divers moyens par lesquels l’expérience se constitue, se transmet etc., s’est beaucoup moins posé la question de la causalité, sans cependant s’en désintéresser totalement.
Actuellement, la réintégration de l’histoire culturelle dans l’histoire politique et militaire se révèle l’un des défis historiographiques majeurs. Elle pose précisément la question du poids de l’expérience, de l’imaginaire et des représentations dans la causalité historique. Un colloque sur « l´Avant 1914 » présente donc une occasion idéale pour relever ce défi d´une manière générale. Dans les causes de la guerre, quel fut donc l’impact de ces avenirs imaginés, et jamais advenus ?
Pour explorer ces trois axes de réflexion, il faut envisager toute la gamme des causalités possibles. En font partie les horizons mentaux et les présupposés culturels et politiques des grands acteurs (généraux, hommes politiques), tout comme la guerre future imaginée par les écrivains ou la grande presse. Egalement importantes sont les lectures contemporaines des conflits de l’avant-guerre, ainsi que la dimension coloniale en tant que terrain imaginaire des avenirs européens, anticipations guerrières comprises. Le projet fournit l’occasion de revisiter aussi la place de la guerre dans les visions de l’avenir au sein de minorités agissantes (nationalistes, féministes, socialistes).
La nature du sujet (notamment l’importance des guerres balkaniques et le poids de la Russie) offre la possibilité d’inclure des spécialistes de l’Europe de l’Est, du Sud-Est et de la Russie. Il en va de même pour l’Italie autour du Futurisme et de la guerre italo-turque de 1911-12. Des pays comme l’Espagne, qui ont participé pleinement à « l’avant-guerre » (crise et « génération » de 1898) sans pour autant participer à la Grande Guerre, se trouvent également dans le périmètre du colloque.
Programme.
1. Introduction: Qu’est-ce qu’un « avant-guerre » ? Qu’est-ce qu´un « avant-guerre de 1914 » ?
2. Les longs passés de la guerre future.
3. La guerre dans le proche avenir, 1899-1914.
4. Crises internationales et imminences de guerre, 1911-1913.
5. La Crise de Juillet 1914
6. Epilogue : Le futur advenu, août-décembre 1914.
Dr Pierre Purseigle, Director, Centre for First World War Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England. p.purseigle@bham.ac.uk ; http://www.firstworldwar.bham.ac.uk
Victorian Epidemics
Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada Banff, Alberta April 29-30, 2011
Keynote speaker: Pamela Gilbert, Albert Brick Professor of English, University of Florida. Dr. Gilbert has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature, cultural studies and the history of medicine. Her first book, Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women’s Popular Novels, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1997, followed by Mapping the Victorian Social Body (SUNY Press, 2004) and The Citizen’s Body (Ohio State University Press, 2007), and Cholera and Nation (SUNY Press, 2008).
This international conference will bring together specialists in Victorian art history, history, gender studies, science, and literature to contemplate the theme of disease in Victorian England and its colonies. Papers will address medical and social histories of disease, literary and artistic representations of disease, and disease as metaphor in Victorian culture.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to: -Victorian plagues: cholera, TB, venereal disease, influenza, smallpox -histories and narratives of disease -identity and pathology -disease and the body -disease as metaphor, languages of disease, contagion, illness -disease and colonization, disease and globalization -art as disease, mass culture as disease -the spread of commercialism -visual and literary representations of disease and illness -sewers, filth, miasma -slums, prostitution -health and hygiene -representations of illness -mental illness -imperial anxiety and disease
Please submit a 500 word abstract and short (50-75 word bio) by 15th September to Kristen Guest, Program Chair, kguest@unbc.ca
The conference will take place in Banff, Alberta in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. The town of Banff is surrounded by the spectacular scenery of Banff National Park, which offers excellent opportunities for both hiking and downhill skiing in late April. Banff is approximately one hour from Calgary and is easily accessible by car or air (regular and reasonably priced shuttles are available from Calgary International Airport).
Accommodations and sessions will be held in the Banff Park Lodge.
Dr. Kristen Guest, Associate Professor, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9. kguest@unbc.ca.
Naples Crucible of the World
The initial conference (April 2010) was rescheduled due to the volcano ashes.
This interdisciplinary conference aims to explore Neapolitan culture from Sixteenth century to present time. Fields of studies are: theatre, cinema, music, literature, politics, philosophy and more. Through such a comparative approach we intend to highlight the great contribution provided by Neapolitan culture to the world. We invite papers (in Italian or English) from scholars in any field of study linked to Neapolitan culture. The new deadline for submissions is 15th September 2010. Please e mail your abstacts (200 words) to mariano.damora@gmail.com The conference will be held in London on 29th and 30th October 2010.
PLEASE NOTE: As we established a partnership with the University of Naples "Parthenope", this conference will be hosted by such University in Naples in May 2011. Speakers who have the opportunity to participate in both conferences (but with different papers) or indicate in which conference they prefer to participate.
Selling Culture?: Cultural Identities in the Victorian Periodical Press
20 – 21 November 2010
(in association with the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals and the Association for Research in Popular Fictions)
Keynote Speaker: Dr Jim Mussell (Birmingham University)
You are invited to contribute proposals on the theme of “Cultural Identities in the Victorian Periodical Press”, for a parallel strand that will run at the Annual Association for Research in Popular Fictions conference.  The conference’s main theme is “Popular Fictions: Selling Culture?”.  The strand co-ordinators, Dr Clare Horrocks and Dr Amber Regis, on behalf of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, are keen to attract papers which focus specifically on how culture was both marketed and commodified in the Victorian Periodical Press – whether that was through the identity of an author, editor, region or even a periodical itself.
Suggested themes include, but are not limited to:
How readers are interpellated – Specific strategies for negotiating new cultural texts and formations – Periodicals and newspapers as a ‘brand’ – Use of illustration – Religious, regional, class and gendered narratives – Editorials and opinion pieces – Feuds, scandals and conflicts – Autobiography and life-writing – Controversies and discoveries – Secrecy and sensation.
Please send abstracts of 250 – 300 words to Dr Clare Horrocks by Friday 16th September 2010 at C.L.Horrocks@ljmu.ac.uk.  Alternatively please write to Dr Clare Horrocks and Dr Amber Regis at Dean Walters Building, Liverpool John Moores University, St James Road, Liverpool, L1 7BR
Dr Clare Horrocks, Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture, Communication, Dean Walters Building, Liverpool John Moores University, St James Road, Liverpool L1 7BR. C.L.Horrocks@ljmu.ac.uk
Shaping Modernism: Katherine Mansfield and her Contemporaries
Faculty of English, University of Cambridge on 25th-26th March 2011. This two-day residential conference will focus on Mansfield and modernism, exploring the exchanges and dialogues between Mansfield and her contemporaries, and the interchange between her writing and other disciplines.
We invite papers from anyone with an interest in Katherine Mansfield and/or modernism. Professor Laura Marcus is confirmed as a keynote speaker, and will be discussing Mansfield and cinema. The author Ali Smith has kindly agreed to present a 'discursive short story'.
Announcements on further keynotes and speakers will be coming soon!
Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Patron of the Katherine Mansfield Society, will be giving our post-dinner talk, following dinner in Newnham College.
Please see our webpage for more details: http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/cambridge-2011/
The deadline for submitting an abstract is 20th September 2010.
Amateur Performance in the Long Nineteenth Century
42nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) April 7-10, 2011 New Brunswick, NJ – Hyatt New Brunswick Host Institution: Rutgers University
The ubiquity of amateur performance in the long nineteenth century (1780-1914) is often peripherally mentioned but rarely made the primary focus of scholarship on the period. Because non-professionals participated in the mechanics of dramatic representation, inhabiting famous dramatic roles instead of observing them in performance, this leisure practice has considerable cultural, political, and aesthetic significance for our understanding of how drama was experienced in the nineteenth century. Amateur performance is a general term for a wide variety of performance scenarios, and proposals are invited that consider country home theatricals, toy/puppet theatricals, performance aboard naval and merchant vessels, middle-class parlor theatricals, school and university performances, amateur benefit productions, and anything in-between. Particular attention to genre is also invited, as texts for amateur performance included fairy tales, burlesques, farces, melodramas, minstrel shows, and scenes from Shakespeare. The panel will ideally cover diverse practices in England and America, though papers considering the practice outside England and America are also welcome.
Please submit a proposal of 250-500 words electronically (.doc or .pdf) to Mary Isbell (mary.isbell@gmail.com)
Deadline: 30th September 2010
Please include with your abstract: Name and Affiliation Email address Postal address Telephone number A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)
The 42nd Annual Convention will feature approximately 360 sessions, as well as pre-conference workshops, dynamic speakers and cultural events. Details and the complete Call for Papers for the 2011 Convention will be posted in June: www.nemla.org.
Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable. Do not accept a slot if you may cancel to present on another session.
Mary Isbell Ph.D. Candidate in English University of Connecticut 215 Glenbrook Road, U-4025 Storrs, CT 06269 860.486.2859
The female performer in European fiction (1780-1914): gender issues
42nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) SESSION ID : 11267 Areas: Women’s and Gender Studies; Comparative Languages April 7-10, 2011 New Brunswick, NJ. Hyatt New Brunswick. Host Institution: Rutgers University
Between 1780 and 1914, the ‘theatre woman’ (including all female performers: actresses, singers, or even dancers) gradually achieved everything : first of all, the female performer upgraded her male counterpart in terms of wages and fame; and secondly she became a fictional heroine. During the period indeed the female performer truly bewitched European authors. One can even suggest the gradual emergence of several sub-genera -- the ‘actress novel’, (see The Tragic Muse, Graf Petöfy, La Faustin), the ‘dancer novel’ (see La Fanfarlo), or even the ‘female singer novel’ (Consuelo). One could even go as far as suggesting a whole network of genera, with for instance, the ‘female dancer poetry’ (Paul Verlaine or Arthur Symons), or the ‘actress play’ (Tosca and Adrienne Lecouvreur). This «upgrading» first bears testimony to the growing popularity of the theatre, the actor, and, more significantly, the actress, in the society of the time; it also points to the widespread interest shown in fiction for the feminine as a whole. We would like to investigate the haunting presence of the ‘female performer’, in late 18th, 19th and early 20th century European fiction (plays, novels, poetry). We would like to see, for example, whether the female performer figure is different in ‘Latin’ or ‘Germanic’ countries. We would also like to raise some questions about gender: does the actress embody womanhood as a whole? In which terms? And is the writing of the female performer ‘gendered’, that is to say, can we notice differences between male and female writers writing about female players?
Please submit 300-word abstracts in English or French to Corinne François-Denève, corinne.francois@uvsq.fr Publication of the proceedings of the conference is possible. Corinne François-Denève, UVSQ, corinne.francois@uvsq.fr, CHCSC, EA 2448, Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin.
Deadline: 30th September 2010
42e convention annuelle de la Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) SESSION ID : 11267 Domaines : études féministes, études de genre, littératures comparées 7-10 avril 2011 New Brunswick, NJ. Hyatt New Brunswick. Institution d’accueil: Rutgers University
La femme de spectacle dans la fiction européenne (1780-1914) : questions de genres
La période couvrant la période des années 1780-1914 marque l’irrésistible ascension de la femme de spectacle (le terme est assez large pour englober les actrices, les chanteuses et les cantatrices, et même les danseuses) : la femme de spectacle finit par surpasser, en termes de gloire et de salaire, ses collègues masculins ; et elle devient une héroïne de fiction. Tout au long de cette période en effet la femme de spectacle fascine les auteurs européens. On peut même suggérer l’émergence graduelle de sous-genres (roman de l’actrice (avec The Tragic Muse, Graf Petöfy, La Faustin?), roman de la danseuse (La Fanfarlo) et même roman de la cantatrice (Consuelo)). On pourrait même aller plus loin et évoquer l’existence d’une multiplication de genres croisés, avec par, exemple, la poésie de la danseuse (Paul Verlaine et Arthur Symons) ou le théâtre de l’actrice (Tosca et Adrienne Lecouvreur). Cette promotion de l’actrice en fiction est un indice évident de la popularité grandissante du théâtre, des acteurs, et, plus précisément, des actrices, dans la société du temps ; mais elle indique aussi un intérêt plus général et non démenti pour le « féminin ». Nous voudrions ici questionner la présence de la femme de spectacle dans la fiction européenne (théâtre, romans, nouvelles) de la fin du XVIIIe au début du XXe siècle. Nous voudrions par exemple nous demander si la femme de spectacle est dépeinte différemment dans les pays dits latins ou dans les pays dits germaniques. Ce panel sera aussi le lieu d?une interrogation sur le « genre ». L’actrice incarne-t-elle la féminité, et si oui, selon quels termes ? Et l’écriture de la femme de spectacle est-elle « genrée » -- peut-on voir des divergences significatives entre les hommes et les femmes de plume qui écrivent sur les femmes de spectacle ?
Envoyez vos propositions, en français et en anglais (300 mots) à Corinne François-Denève, corinne.francois@uvsq.fr.
Une publication peut suivre la conférence.
Date limite: 30 septembre 2010
-- Corinne François-Denève, Maître de conférences en littérature française, Université de Versailles, Saint Quentin en Yvelines.
Between Light and Darkness - International Symposium on Fin-de-siècle Symbolism
The symposium Between Light and Darkness will take place 9th and 10th December 2010 at the Ateneum Art Museum - Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, Finland.
The focus of the symposium is on religion, mysticism, and subjectivity in Symbolist art and theory, and on the fin-de-siècle relationship between art and science, considering also the ways in which the Symbolist influence has continued after the fin-de-siècle period. The purpose is to bring together scholars studying Symbolism and related subjects and to shed new light on the interconnectedness of esoteric thought and the discourses of Modernity.
Between Light and Darkness is organized as collaboration by the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, the Department of Art History at the University of Helsinki, and the Ateneum Art Museum - Finnish National Gallery, which hosts an important collection of Symbolist art mainly by Finnish artists, such as Magnus Enckell, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Hugo Simberg, and Ellen Thesleff. The symposium is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
The symposium wishes to pay tribute to the Finnish art historian Salme Sarajas-Korte who was among the first researchers to initiate a discussion on the relations between artistic and mystical discourses. Her doctoral dissertation on Symbolist art, published in 1966, for which she did extensive archival work at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is still unparalleled in its understanding of the interconnectedness of Symbolist art with the broader cultural field of literature, philosophy, religion, and mysticism.
Professor Lynn L. Sharp of Whitman College, author of the 2006 book Secular Spirituality: Reincarnation and Spiritism in Nineteenth-Century France, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker. Further information about speakers, sessions, and the program will be announced later on the symposium web page http://www.ateneum.fi/default.asp?docId=13811.
The organizers of the symposium invite paper proposals from scholars of art history, literature, music, cultural history, religion, etc. The presentations may cover any topic relating to the theme of the symposium. Presenters are asked to prepare a 20 minute talk and allow 10 minutes for discussion.
Those interested in presenting a paper at the symposium should send an abstract in English (max. 400 words) to Marja Lahelma (marja.lahelma@helsinki.fi) by 30th September 2010.
Victorian Bodies and Machines
42nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) April 7-10, 2011 New Brunswick, NJ – Hyatt New Brunswick Host Institution: Rutgers University
This panel will examine representational and material relations between bodies and machines in the Victorian era. Papers may approach this topic from the direction of industrialization and economics to examine labor power; the laborer’s body as machine or appendage of the machine; or the effects of machine labor on the worker’s body, including factory accidents and developmental deformities. Specific Victorian technological innovations may be addressed through examination of scientific texts (or science fiction) and the ways new technologies are figured in relation with (or as extensions of) human bodies, including networks and human communications; prostheses and appendages; or robots and automatons. Papers may also examine the connections between machines and specific kinds of bodies (classed, gendered, etc.) or forms of embodiment (for example: How does the worker’s relation with the machine construct a specifically gendered and/or classed body?). In addition to texts of the Victorian era, the panel welcomes papers that examine relations between Victorian bodies and machines in Steampunk texts and contexts.
Please send 250-500 word abstracts to Jessica Kuskey jekuskey@syr.edu. Deadline: 30th September 2010.
Please include with your abstract:
Name and Affiliation – Email address – Postal address – Telephone number – A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration).
American Literary Tourism
42nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) April 7-10, 2011 New Brunswick, NY – Hyatt New Brunswick Host Institution: Rutgers University
American Literary Tourism From visits to the grave of the fictional eighteenth-century Charlotte Temple, to the restoration of Salem’s House of the Seven Gables at the turn of the century, to competing twentieth-century Faulkner Festivals, literary tourism is ingrained in American culture. We invite submissions from scholars interested in any aspect of American literary tourism, from the creation and maintenance of sites and events, to interpretations and experiences of them, and beyond. Send 300-500 word proposals and brief bio/CV to Jennifer Harris (jharris@mta.ca). Deadline: 30th September 2010.
Please include with your abstract: Name and Affiliation Email address Postal address Telephone number A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)
The 42nd Annual Convention will feature approximately 360 sessions, as well as dynamic speakers and cultural events. Details and the complete Call for Papers for the 2011 Convention will be posted in June: www.nemla.org.
Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable. Do not accept a slot if you may cancel to present on another session.
Jennifer Harris, Associate Professor, Department of English, Mount Allison University, Canada http://www.mta.ca/faculty/arts-letters/english/faculty/harris/index.htm
October
Disability & the Victorians: Confronting Legacies
30th July-1st August 2012,  Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, England
Announcement and First Call for Papers
The nineteenth century was the period during which disability was conceptualised, categorised, and defined. The industrial revolution, advances in medicine, the emergence of philanthropy and the growth of asylums all played their part in creating what today's society describes as the medical model of disability.
Disability can be traced through many forms: in material culture and literary genres; scientific, medical and official inquiries; art; architecture; the history of disabled charities; disabled people's experiences; the legacy inherited by disabled people today of phrenology and physiognomy; events such as the 1880 Milan Conference, and the taxonomies and categories of disability - the handicapped; the deaf and dumb; the feeble minded; the blind; the imbecile and the cretin. The legacy of the relationship between the body, the scientific and the literary text; the intersection of disability, theories of evolution and anthropology, gender and degeneration. How can we draw disabled voices and testimonies together to construct 'the long view'? What are the advantages and the challenges of teaching about disability and the disabled in the Victorian period?
Proposals for papers, panels, posters and other forms of presentation (e.g. creative writing) are invited that open up new lines of research and inquiry relating to any aspect of Disability in the Victorian period. Possible themes might include:
* Resistance, conformity, subversion, transgression. * Freak shows and circuses. * The visibility and invisibility of disability: beggars, street sellers, hawkers; Victorian institutions, charities, asylums, schools and clubs. * Taxonomic practices. * Disabled heroes and villains; male vs. female invalidism; the school of pain. * Victorian technologies, prostheses, the emergence of audiology, the development and spread of Braille. * The revival of folkloric changelings. * Portrayals of children and childhood. * Disability as a moral force for improvement, theology and spiritual enlightenment/development. * The formation of Victorian national identity and national efficiency, empire, 'race' and colonialism. * Disability and the fear of loss, eugenics and degeneration. * The medical and scientific text. * Victorian social policy and legal frameworks.
Those with an involvement in disability, either through work, teaching or direct experience, and papers that adopt a comparative frame, shifting across the normal boundaries of history, literary studies, the history of medicine, the history and philosophy of science, art history, etc. are especially sought, but studies with a narrower focus seeking to challenge Victorian legacies in this field are also welcome.
The deadline for the submission of proposals for panel sessions (no longer than 500 words) and proposals for individual 20-minute papers and presentations (200-250 words) is 4th October, 2010. At this stage your proposal/enquiry may be exploratory. A second and final call for papers will be issued in June 2011.
Please send a short biographical note together with your proposal. Prospective panel organisers should also send the panellists' names, paper titles, and a short biographical note for each panellist and their contact details.
Support workers and carers are exempted from the conference registration fees. Papers will be circulated in advance of the conference. Please indicate by July 2011 if you would like LCVS to supply a sign language interpreter. Please indicate by April 2012 if you would like LCVS to supply an escort or support worker. All assistance dogs are welcome. If you have any enquiries regarding facilities and services for disabled people, or would like this Call for Papers in large print, please contact Joy Hamblin.
Proposals, or enquiries relating to these, should be sent to Karen Sayer k.sayer@leedstrinity.ac.uk
General enquiries to:
Karen Sayer, Senior Lecturer in History, Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, Leeds Trinity University College, Brownberrie Lane, Leeds, LS18 5HD; e-mail k.sayer@leedstrinity.ac.uk; tel. 0113 2837212
Or, Joy Hamblin, Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, Leeds Trinity University College, Brownberrie Lane, Leeds, LS18 5HD j.hamblin@leedstrinity.ac.uk; tel. 0113 2837305 <mailto:m.hewitt@tasc.ac.uk;>
Social History
The 2011 annual conference of the Social History Society will take place at the University of Manchester from Tuesday 12 to Thursday 14 April 2011.
The Society's conference has no single theme. It is organised in six strands (full details on the website)
— Deviance, Inclusion and Exclusion — Life-cycles and Life-styles — Markets, Culture and Society — Political Cultures, Policy and Citizenship — Narratives, Emotions and the Self — Spaces and Places
Please submit proposals for papers via the Social History Society website http://www.socialhistory.gellius.net/annualconference.php. The deadline is 4th October 2010.
We encourage submissions of panels of up to 4 speakers. Proposals for individual papers of up to 20 minutes are, of course, also welcome. Details of each strand are available on the conference website.
Postgraduate students are encouraged to offer papers. Details of bursaries and the postgraduate paper prize are available on the conference website. Papers presented at the conference can be submitted to the Society¹s journal, Cultural and Social History, to be considered for publication. For details, see http://www.socialhistory.gellius.net/Journal.php.
General enquiries should be sent to: Mrs. Linda Persson, Administrative Secretary, Social History Society, Furness College, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YG (01524 592547; l.persson@lancaster.ac.uk).
Dr Katrina Navickas Lecturer in History, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire, De Havilland Campus, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB.
CARMEN AND HER OTHERS
Confirmed speakers include Ann Davies (Newcastle) and Jean Andrews (Nottingham).
The aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to conduct an in-depth study of Carmen in her various manifestations. By exploring Carmen in text, opera, film, dance and theatre, the conference hopes to trace various incarnations of the work across time and space. By juxtaposing multiple versions, we will explore issues of inter-cultural and inter-medial translation and adaptation.
The most famous versions of Carmen are the Merimee novella (1845) and Bizet’s opera (1875). Subsequently, the story proliferated into over eighty films and numerous re-stagings, including notable versions such as those by Cecille DeMille (1915), Otto Preminger (1954) and Carlos Saura (1995). More recent interpretations include Karmen Gei (2001, Senegal); U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha (2005, South Africa); and a television remake starring Beyonce Knowles (Carmen: A Hip Hopera, 2001).
In addition to these, there are other lesser-known versions of the work. For example, the film The Wild, Wild Rose (1960, Hong Kong); a manga version produced for the Vancouver Opera; and a Danish staging as 2200 Carmens at the Nørrebro Teater with the rapper Isam B in 2009. There have also been numerous uses of the figure of Carmen as an archetype: for example, by the Symbolist poet Aleksandr Blok and the director Petr Chardyninin late Tsarist Russia. Moreover, there have been countless references to Carmen in films such as Mr X, Part 1 (1967, Egypt) and Love Drives Them Mad (1946, Mexico).
The conference invites papers dealing with any version of Carmen in any culture, form and language (including, but not limited to, those mentioned above). We particularly welcome papers that address non-European adaptations or lesser-known re-workings. The papers should address issues such as: * Genre and media and their impact on representation; * Cultural adaptability of stories and archetypes; * Issues of translation across cultures and media; * The configuration and representation of issues of gender, race and criminality; * Dissemination and migration of cultural tropes.
Presenters will have 30 minutes for their papers. In addition, each presenter will be asked to respond (in less than 10 minutes) to one other paper. Therefore, all presenters will be also asked to circulate a draft of their paper to their ‘partner’ a week in advance of the conference. It is hoped that this activity will encourage debate across discipline, culture and media.
A book proposal will be drafted once the conference programme is finalised.
Two evening events related to the conference will be held at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 11 and 12 February including a concert version of Carmen with video projections, and a performance with the multimedia artist, Robin Storey (Rapoon).
Please send your proposal (no more than 500 words) by 8th October 2010 to: carmenandherothers@gmail.com.
Please direct any questions to: Dr Mi Zhou (UCL Mellon Programme) zhou.mi@ucl.ac.uk.
Walter Pater's Poetics
Decadent Poetics, a conference at the University of Exeter (1st-2nd July 2011)
I am soliciting abstracts on Walter Paters Poetics to propose a panel for the conference on Decadent Poetics, next summer. The general conference CFP can be found here: http://www.essenglish.org/cfp/conf1103.html The confirmed keynote speakers are Stephen Arata (Virginia), Joseph Bristow (UCLA), Regenia Gagnier (Exeter), Catherine Maxwell (Queen Mary, London).
This panel aims to draw out the ambivalent dynamics between Pater and 'Decadence'. It is with this and the conference's larger concerns in mind that proposals could consider: * How Pater's poetics influenced Decadence * Pater's resistance to and relationship with Decadent forms * Pater's mode of composition * The roots of Pater's style * The symbolic significance of Pater in Decadent culture * The relationship between form and thought in Pater's work
Of course, there are many more issues and approaches, and I'm very open to suggestions.
To submit a proposal for this panel please e-mail an abstract of 300-500 words, and a 1- page CV to me, Dr. Kate Hext, at k.hext@ex.ac.uk and/or kjhext@gmail.com by Friday 15th October 2010. Questions and expressions of interest also welcome!
The Institute of Macedonian Literature and the Macedonian Comparative Literature Association are pleased to announce the Fourth International Congress of the RÉSEAU EUROPÉEN D'ÉTUDES LITTÉRAIRES COMPARÉES / EUROPEAN NETWORK FOR COMPARATIVE LITERARY STUDIES
LITERARY DISLOCATIONS
1st-3rd September 2011, Skopje-Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia
The Organising Committee of the Conference is composed of Sonja Stojmenska-Elzeser (Co-ordinator), Vladimir Martinovski (Co-ordinator), Loreta Georgievska-Jakovleva (Director of Institute of Macedonian Literature), Natasa Avramovska, Jasmina Mojsieva-Guseva, Anastasija Gjurcinova, Lidija Kapusevska-Drakulevska, Ana Martinoska and Goce Smilevski (Members) and Nele Bemong (Belgium), Marko Juvan (Slovenia), Brigitte Le Juez (Ireland), Roumiana Stantcheva (Bulgaria)
Recently, the predominance of the spatiality as a dimension of the human world has become evident in the humanities. Ever since the influential works written by Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Edward Soja, Homi Bhabha and many others, comparative literature, too, has become fully aware that location is a very complex notion, which combines many different aspects and approaches to the human existence and creativity. If we consider this fact in relation to current relevance of concepts, such as movement, motion, transfer, and transformation of identities, we can speak about a range of different dislocations that are inherent to the culture. Geopoetics and geocriticism can provide important methodological tools for discussions related to such movements in the frames of literature. Moreover postcolonial criticism, feminist theory, cultural geography and other cultural approaches can also significantly contribute to highlighting other relevant aspects connected to the problem of removing, changing, crossing boundaries, transferring. This dynamic is absolutely relevant for comparative literary studies as well.
This conference aims to examine the multiplicity of literary and cultural representations and other phenomena that implicate spatiality, movement and unstable locations which are considered as points of dynamic processes. Dislocation emerges as a notion that traverses various disciplines and different textual and artistic practices and at the same time it amplifies its relevance in the exploration of the current cultural production. The conference papers can analyze the theoretical implications of dislocation or they can focus on dislocation as referential content (the dislocation of travel, migration and exile, urbanization etc.).
Many issues are expected to be discussed, such as: How are dislocations represented, produced or defined in literature and other media? Are there any media or genre-specific concepts of transgressive spaces? Which are other literary functions of the topos beside its primary function as a container for the plot? How is it possible to use the notions of space and spatial practices as analytic tools in and across disciplines? In which way is identification related to dislocation? How can geography and history, language and cartography help us to better understand literary creations and cultural contexts?
Possible topics may include but are not limited to:
Spatio-temporal dislocation aesthetic strategies and expressions of dislocation –
· poetics of exile, nomadism, travelogue, migratory identities and topographies, articulations of not-being in place, dislocation of literary genres, imaginary landscapes, flaneurism, dislocation of the authorial voice, mobility and projected spaces (utopia, dystopia, limbo, paradise, hell), space metaphors and mapping, alternative maps
(Dis)locations as cultural phenomena
· cultural geography, tourism, ecotourism, urban dislocations, diaspora cultural dislocation, intercultural communication, changing identities, transformation of identities, (hybridization, creolization and metissage), liminality, border studies, migrations, global/local/glocal, third space, transcending the boundaries of public and private space
Linguistic and semiotic transfers as dislocations
· translation studies, plurilinguistic phenomena, dislocation of texts, rewriting, translation as trade and exchange between cultures, displayed texts, interlinguistic quotations
Note: As part of the Congress some special activities will take place: a special roundtable on ‘Cultural Saints of Europe’ which is connected to a current project in comparative literature, meetings of the REELC/ENCLS members and other cultural events (further details will be posted on the website of REELC/ENCLS).
Conference official languages and papers
Official working languages of the conference are English and French.
(Only in special cases Macedonian language can be accepted, but translation into English or French must be provided by the speaker).
Upon arrival, all the participants will receive a booklet of abstracts in the official languages.
The length of the presentations is limited to max. 15 minutes.
Venue and accommodation
The conference will take place on Thursday-Saturday, 1st-3rd of September 2011. The opening ceremony will take place at the University Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje on 1st of September. The following working sessions will take place on 2nd and 3rd of September at the Congress Centre in Ohrid. The transportation from Skopje to Ohrid and back will be arranged by the organizers.
The registration fee is 50 EUR or equivalent in Denars payable upon arrival in cash (at the registration of the conference). The fee includes cocktails during the conference and organized transportation Skopje-Ohrid-Skopje.
Participants of the conference book and pay for their hotel accommodations themselves. The organizing committee will release a list with addresses and prices of available hotels by 15th of November 2011.
Two sightseeing tours will be organised, one of Skopje and one of Ohrid. These will be free of charge, but participants will need to confirm their interest for either one or both of them.
Schedule:
By 15th of October 2010 (deadline for paper proposals): Please fill in the registration form with your info, the title of your paper and the abstract, and send to congress.encls@yahoo.com
Contact persons: Sonja Stojmenska-Elzeser (elzeser@sonet.com.mk), Vladimir Martinovski (martinovski@gmail.com) and Ana Martinoska (martinoska@yahoo.com).
By 15th of November 2010: The Organising Committee will inform you by e-mail whether your paper has been included in the conference program. You will also receive practical information on the hotel accommodations, transfer from the airport and the sightseeing tours.
Publication of papers
A peer-reviewed selection of papers will be published in separate printed edition, sponsored by the Institute of Macedonian Literature, by the end of 2012. The deadline for submission of the papers (max. 30,000 characters with spaces) is by 15th of November 2011.
British women poets and their experimentations
British Women Writers Conference Panel Proposal: “Formal Curiosities.”
Conference: March 31-April 3, 2011 at The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Paper proposals are invited for a panel-submission on 18th- and 19th-century British women poets and their experimentations with poetic form. How did women poets negotiate form as self-exploration and (how) was form gendered? Papers may examine a single work, the formal development of a single poet or the  evolution of a form in the hands of several poets. 500-word abstracts due 15th October 2010; email to Prof. Noah Comet, comet.2@osu.edu. Please submit proposals in .doc format and attach a c.v. Note that paper selections will be made very soon after the 10/15 deadline so that papers not accepted for this panel may still be submitted to the general BWWC call (deadline 1st November).
NVSA 2011: SYSTEMS AND ARCHIVES
Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.
–Thomas Carlyle (1841)
University of Maryland, College Park: April 15—17, 2011
The Northeast Victorian Studies Association calls for papers considering the ways Victorians organized information, knowledge, concepts, phenomena, and materials. They classified, categorized, connected, synthesized, and unified; they constructed technological, conceptual, and theoretical systems; they archived historical records and artifacts. This year’s conference will take up that Victorian systematizing, its forms of organization and its explanatory structures. What kind of systems and systematic thinking were developed in the period? What is distinctive about Victorian approaches to systems? How and why did Victorians arrange, record, and store information? What are the metaphors of systems? What kind of subjects generated archives and what were the principles of organization? What constitutes an archive and is an archive always a system? And how and why were systems resisted? We especially seek papers that reflect upon the nature, conceptions, and representation of systems and archives.
Institutional, Political, and Social Systems — Class — Education — Political economy — Imperial systems — Religion — Finance and Banking — Penal systems — Corporations — Parliamentary system — Judicial systems — Land tenure system — Systematic Theology — The Poor Law — Moral systems and systems of belief — Resistance to such systems
“Mamma, whose views on education are remarkably strict, has brought me up to be extremely short—sighted; it is part of her system.”
—Oscar Wilde (1895)
Technological Systems — Railway — Sewage — Electrical system — Mechanical systems — Telegraph
Disciplines and/as Systems — Systems in sociology: Herbert Spencer — Anthropology systems, e.g. kinship, — Mathematics — Psychology and systematic understandings of the mind
Systems in the sciences: Electro-magnetic systems
Biological systems: Bodily systems, e.g. nervous system, neural system, digestive system, reproductive system, the human as system
Solar and stellar systems: Medical systems
Environmental systems: Systems of natural formations—glacier, geological, etc.
Motion of material systems—dynamics
Zoological systems—Chemical systems—Botanical systems—Thermodynamics—
We are slowly beginning to recognise that there may be a science of History, a science of Language, a science of Religion, and, in fact, that all knowledge may be systematised on a common Method.
—George Henry Lewes (1878)
Literary Systems: Versification — Systems of classifying fiction; realist, sensation, etc. — Philology — Linguistics
Systems of Representation and the Representation of Systems: — Numerical systems — Braille — Linguistic systems — Shorthand systems — Monetary systems — Systems of logic — Chemical notation — Diagrams and charts — What are the metaphors of systems? —e.g., organicist and mechanical, equilibrium,  and entropy. — What role did the natural sciences play in  Victorian conceptualizing of systems?
Many things which were before lying separate have fallen into their places as harmonious parts of a system that admits of logical development from the simplest general principles.
—Herbert Spencer (1904)
Systematic Theorists and System Builders
e.g., J. S. Mill, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, George Henry Lewes, William Whewell, Henry Mayhew, John Henry Newman, Bernard Bosanquet , Auguste Comte.
Paranoia and conspiracy — Design vs. coincidence — Anarchy — Satires of systematic thinking, e.g. Dickens
Victorian Archives
— Who had archives and why? — What did the Victorians collect and how did they organize those materials? — Zoos and gardens as imperial archives — The archive of others/the other as archive — The relationship between museums and archives
Consult the archives, first—/ Then, fortified with knowledge, seek the Hall!
—Robert Browning (1844)
Contemporary Archives and the Victorian Period
— How do we organize, collect, and store Victorian texts? How do our archives affect our understanding of the period? — Electronic archives and systems, e.g. ProQuest, Google Books.
Archives and History/Archives and Theory
— The rise of archival research in history: what is specifically Victorian about archival systems? — What did Foucault do to our notion of archives and knowledge systems and what does a post Foucauldian notion of the archive look like?
The Media of Archives
— What counts as archival evidence? — Permanent versus ephemeral archives — Sound technology — Photography
Proposals (no more than 500 words) by 15th October 2010 (e-mail submissions only, please):
Professor Tanya Agathocleous, Chair, NVSA Program Committee, (tagathoc@hunter.cuny.edu).
Please note: all submissions to NVSA are evaluated anonymously. Successful proposals will stay within the 500—word limit and make a compelling case for the talk and its relation to the conference topic. Please do not send complete papers, and do not include your name on the proposal.
Please do include your name, institutional and email addresses, and proposal title in a cover letter. Papers should take 15 minutes (20 minutes maximum) so as to provide ample time for discussion.
The Coral Lansbury Travel Grant ($100.00) and George Ford Travel Grant ($100.00), given in memory of key founding members of NVSA, are awarded annually to the graduate student, adjunct instructor, or independent scholar who must travel the greatest distance to give a paper at our conference. Apply by indicating in your cover letter that you wish to be considered. Please indicate from where you will be travelling, and mention if you have other sources of funding.
Suzy Anger, President, NVSA, Department of English University of British Columbia 397 — 1873 East Mall Vancouver, BC  V6T 1Z1
Society of Dix-Neuviémistes Ninth Annual Conference
University of Birmingham 7 - 9 April 2011.
Dirt and Debris
We invite proposals for papers 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:
Gossip, scandal and dishing the dirt — Personal disgrace and stained reputations — Pornography and erotic literature — Wrecks and ruins — Scents and smells — Textual debris (pre-texts, discarded work, uncompleted manuscripts) — Crime and underworlds — The earth/soil and its products — Innocence, virtue and purity — War debris and the aftermath of battle — Diseases, infections and bodily dirt — Flotsam, jetsam and marine debris — Hygiene obsessions — Clean slates: generosity and forgiveness
Proposals for individual papers or for panels should be addressed by email, by 31st October 2010, to Dr Andrew Watts, SDN Conference Organiser, at the following address: sdn.proposals@yahoo.co.uk
Please indicate your audio-visual requirements.
NOVEMBER
2nd Annual North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference
Toronto, Canada January 15-16, 2011
Deadline for Proposals: 1st November 2010
The North American Anarchist Studies Network is currently seeking presentations for our second annual conference to be held at the Steel Worker's Hall in Toronto, Canada. We are seeking submissions from radical academics, independent researchers, community activists, street philosophers and students. We invite those engaged in intellectual work within existing institutions, such as universities, but also those engaged in the production of knowledge beyond institutional walls to share their ongoing work. From the library stacks to the streets, we encourage all those interested in the study of anarchism to submit a proposal.
In keeping with the open and fluid spirit of anarchism, we will not be calling for any specific topics of discussion, but rather are encouraging participants to present on a broad and diverse number of themes- from the historical to the contemporary to the utopian. For inspiration, we have included a number of suggested themes that have been of interest us; we invite you to suggest and submit your own topics, papers, themes, panels and workshops:
Theorizing Anarchism: Perspectives on Anarchist Studies — Greening Anarchy: Anarchism and the Environment — Bridging the Marxist/Anarchist Divide: Is Black and Red Dead? — Race, Class & Solidarity: Migration Politics — Indigenous Rights and Politics in (Occupied) North America — Expanding the Anarchist Canon: Non-Western Anarchism(s) — The South American 'New Left' and Anarchism — 'Queering' Anarchy: Anarchism and LGBTQ Issues — 'Revolution' in the 21st Century: The Meaning of Social Change Today — Militant Research: Connecting Activism and Academia — Practicing Anarchy: Organization, Insurrection and Anarchist Social Movements — Envisioning Alternatives: Anarchist Utopias — Anarchism and Radical (Dis)ability Politics — The Greek 'Crisis' and Anarchist Responses — Post-G20 Toronto: Learning from Toronto's G20 Mobilizations — Anarchist Cultural Perspectives and Practices — The Post-Anarchist Challenge? — Anarchists and Academia: The Perils, Pitfalls and Potentialities of the University
It is our sincere hope that this conference will, to the greatest extent possible, accurately represent the diversity of North American anarchist politics and thought; to that end, we encourage submission(s) in English, French, Spanish and in any other language or on any other topic you feel relevant to this experience and this community.
Send your proposal, including a short abstract, a working title and three keywords that describe your project to the Toronto NAASN Crew at naasntoronto@gmail.com.
For more information on the North America Anarchist Studies Network check out our website at www.naasn.org.
We look forward to hearing from you, organizing with you and, of course, learning from you!
Theatricality and Performance in Victorian Literature and Culture
The fourth issue of Victorian Network, guest edited by Dr. Beth Palmer (University of Surrey), will explore the various ways in which the Victorians related to concepts of performance and theatricality. The theatre held a central place in the Victorian imagination. Nineteenth-century investments in theatrical culture, as well as in theatrical modes of marketing and consuming literature, reflect in particularly interesting ways on the diverse performances – of class, gender, racial and national identities etc. – which shaped Victorian everyday life. We are therefore inviting submissions of no more than 7000 words investigating any aspect of this theme. A prize of £50, which we reserve the right to withhold, will be awarded for the best paper submitted.
A liberal approach to the topic is encouraged, and prospective contributors may wish to consider, among other things:
The permeation of theatrical tropes and attitudes into non-literary areas of society (science, politics, religion etc.) – Theatrical performances of authorship – Actors, actresses and Victorian celebrity culture – Spaces and politics of Victorian theatrical performances – Victorian popular culture and the theatre – Victorian theatre’s interfaces with written culture – The effects of the physical and technological limitations of performance – The role played by the theatre in forging a distinctly Victorian culture – The effects of performance culture on the practice of reading – Precedents set by the Victorians for our own theatrical culture.
All submissions should conform to MHRA style conventions and the in-house submission guidelines. The deadline for submissions to our next issue is 1st November 2010. Contact: victoriannetwork@gmail.com.
Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism 14: Victorian Ecology
Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, the journal of ASLE-UK (the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment), explores interdisciplinary interfaces between humans and the natural and built environment. Submissions are invited for our spring 2011 edition which will focus on ecological themes in Victorian Literature and Culture.
Submissions may focus on any literary or cultural figures, or genres, either in or related to the Victorian period or the nineteenth-century. Examples might include, but need not be limited to the following themes: Victorian literature and science, post-Romanticism, cultural criticism (e.g. Ruskin, Carlyle, Morris), Victorian gothic, the realist novel, evolutionary theory and/or the new physics, key scientific figures (Darwin, Wallace etc), the industrial or urban landscape, Victorian poetry, literature and ‘early green politics’. Articles that relate to nineteenth-century literature within other cultures, especially European cultures, will also be considered. While we do not specify any particular themes, articles should have a broad ecocritical flavour, be informed by ecocritical theory, and seek to establish, where appropriate, connections or divergences with contemporary ecological thinking.
Green Letters is a peer-reviewed journal. Manuscript length should be between 4000 and 6000 words. Eventual submissions should be made via email with a MS Word attachment of the document. If you would like to contribute to this issue, please send an abstract (approximately 500 words) to the editor j.parham@worc.ac.uk by the end of June. The deadline for submissions will be Monday 1st November 2010.
Imaginary Artists
AAH Annual Conference 2011 31 March - 2 April, University of Warwick, England
In 1957 Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges started working on the Book of Imaginary Beings in it he describes mythical beings extracted from literature and popular culture. The session of imaginary artists will take on his idea and methodology to attempt a compendium of artists that exist in a different layer of reality. From alluring Rrose Selavy to Media artist Roberta Breitmore the history of art is widely inhabited by alter egos that bring into art yet another dimension apart from the traditional interactions between the artist, the work and the spectator. Partly as a reaction to the machinery of art and partly as a way of obtaining a sense of freedom artists have created other selves that challenge traditional ways of studying and showing art. This session will elaborate on the history of artists that do not exist and their works of art if any. More than a question of pseudonyms this session will try to reconstruct the history of the artist as a work of art. It could also be thought of as an attempt to reconstruct the biography of artists that are a figment of another artist’s imagination.
Deadline: 1st November 2010. Convener: Maria Clara Bernal mariaclara.bernal@gmail.com
British queer history
The Journal of British Studies is calling for papers on all aspects of British queer history. Articles can be from the medieval period to the present day. This is for a special issue to be published in late 2011 or early 2012, to be guest edited by Brian Lewis (McGill University). Articles should be 10,000-12,000 words long, follow the JBS format, and be submitted by 1st November 2010.
For more information, see http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JBS/instruct.html or contact the editors at jbs.history@mcgill.ca or Brian Lewis at brian.lewis@mcgill.ca.
Decadent Poetics
Centre for Victorian Studies | University of Exeter | 1st – 2nd July 2011
Keynote speakers: Stephen Arata | Joseph Bristow | Regenia Gagnier | Catherine Maxwell
CALL FOR PAPERS The initial reception of ‘decadent’ writing in both France and England was characterised by a focus on form and the importance of the poets of the late Roman Empire. From Theophile Gautier’s Preface to the 1868 edition of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal to Arthur Symons’s ‘The Decadent Movement in Literature’ and Paul Bourget’s famous delineation of decadent writing attempts to articulate a ‘decadent poetics’ were central to the definition of this new literature. Yet in recent years our understanding of decadence has been, arguably, occluded by the focus on cultural politics and sexual transgression, which continue to dominate academic criticism of the fin de siècle. This conference seeks to return to the Victorian interest in language, poetics and form as the key to understanding decadence and aestheticism as literary phenomena. The focus here will be on both poetry and prose of the period and we particularly encourage those interested in marginal and forgotten writers, along with the debates on the relationship between poetics and a culture in decline. We also welcome those interested in the intersection between literary form and other cultural mediums such as visual art. In an attempt to outline a decadent poetics, we also seek to expand and complicate the canon of ‘decadent’ writers who dominate prevailing versions of the Victorian fin de siècle.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
education and language • Victorians and Roman literature • Decadent prosody • Decadent and Modernist poetics • Aestheticist poetics • transatlantic Decadence • fin-de-siècle philology/linguistics • politics of Decadence and Aestheticism • satires of Decadent form • print/visual cultures of Decadence • Decadence and new technologies • genetic readings of Decadence • archival Decadence • material Decadence
Abstracts of 300-500 words should be sent to Dr Alex Murray and Dr Jason Hall via email at decadent-poetics@exeter.ac.uk by 10th November 2010. Proposals for panels (comprising three speakers) are also welcome—please submit the title and a brief description of the panel as well as abstracts for the individual papers. Speakers (whether part of a proposed panel or not) are asked to include a one-page CV with full contact details, institutional affiliation (where applicable) and a list of relevant publications. Please bear in mind that final papers should take between 15 and 20 minutes (maximum) to deliver.
George Bernard shaw
The 34th Annual Comparative Drama Conference in Los Angeles, CA, sponsored by Loyola Marymount University, will occur from 24 to 26 March 2011, at which at least one Shaw session will be held. Topic is open, except that Shaw must be some part of it. The deadline for 250-word abstracts (with title) and CV is 15th November 2010, preferably sent by email attachment to tstaffor@utep.edu or tnyorzb@sbcglobal.net or by mail to Dr. Tony Stafford, Department of English, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79912. Information about the conference in general (registration and the like) may be obtained from Kevin Wetmore at kwhetmore@lmu.edu. Please check www.shawsociety.org for links to the conference, when they become available.
Taking Care of Business: Money, Property and Victorian Culture
Joint NAVSA/ACCUTE panel at the 2011 Conference of ACCUTE (Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English), Fredericton, NB, Canada (May 28-31, 2011). Organizer: Mary Rimmer (University of New Brunswick, Fredericton)
In Past and Present (1843), Thomas Carlyle has his fictional alter-ego Sauerteig identify the "Hell of the English" as "not making money": this sardonic view of materialism and the pursuit of wealth finds a variety of echoes across the spectrum of Victorian literature. Yet at the same time, money and wealth had a certain fascination for writers, many of whom built economically successful careers around literary work. This call invites proposals for papers on "Money, Property and Victorian Culture." Possible topics include metaphorical uses of wealth and money-making; literary/cultural framings of business, industry and property; periodical debates over political economy; Victorian theories of wealth and capital; the roles of money in the courtship plot; the business of literature (e.g. copyright law, serialization, circulating libraries, the changing literary marketplace); the debates over women's rights to earn, own and control money; the intersections between religious and economic discourse. Additional topics within the general theme are welcome.
Following ACCUTE's guidelines for submissions (available at http://www.accute.ca/generalcall.html [Option I]), send proposals by 15th November to Mary Rimmer (mrimmer@unb.ca).
Dr M. Rimmer, Dept. Chair and Co-Director of Majors and Honours (A-K), Department of English, University of New Brunswick, P.O. Box 4400, Fredericton, NB, Canada E3B 5A3. TEL 506 458 7393/FAX 506 453 5069
Gissing’s World within the World: Art and the Artist
Fourth International George Gissing Conference
Monday 28 to Wednesday 30 March 2011
University of York, UK
With the support of CECILLE Research Centre, University of Lille
The specific focus of the York Gissing Conference will be an often-overlooked aspect of Gissing’s artistic philosophy. While many readers have emphasized Gissing’s almost sociological engagement with material conditions, Gissing saw himself as a more detached devotee of art “pure & simple.” In a famous letter to his brother Algernon (22 September 1885), he observed that the artist should “keep apart, & preserve [his] soul alive” because the natural environment of the artist is “the shade,” where he “can make a world within the world.” Papers are therefore particularly sought on all aspects of Gissing as an artist, notably his engagement with late Victorian aesthetics and obsessive “detachment from the vulgarities of the day.” Topics may also include, but are not limited to the following:
· Absorbing non-verbal aesthetics into the fictional constructs: the world as picture; ekphrasis; the visual arts in Gissing
· Artistic leanings, amateur and professional: representational strategies
· Gissing and Æstheticism
· Exploring generic boundaries: Gissing and the Künstlerroman
· Not his line of work? Gissing, drama and poetry
· Classical Gissing
· Gissing as Critic
This conference will feature a session on “Teaching Gissing in the Twenty-first Century.” If you are interested in participating in this panel, please provide the organiser with a brief description of your particular approach to teaching Gissing. You may apply both to deliver a paper and to participate in the teaching session.
Please submit abstracts of 300 words for 20-minute papers with a brief biographical note and/or applications to be involved in the Teaching panel to Nicky Losseff, University of York (nl5@york.ac.uk) no later than 15th November 2010. Please include the following personal details with your abstract: name and institutional affiliation, email address, postal address, telephone and mobile phone numbers, and A/V requirements (if any).
Participants will be notified of their acceptance by 15th January 2011 (or earlier, for those who require official letters of invitation for the purpose of obtaining support from their home institutions). Further details about registration costs, travel arrangements and accommodation (ensuite single bedrooms available on campus) will be available on the conference website after the summer:
Conference highlights:
· Conference dinner to be followed by a piano concert (by students from the Music Department of the University of York - Gabrielle Fleury repertoire)
· An optional excursion to the nearby city of Wakefield, birthplace of the author. Anthony Petyt, of The Gissing Trust, will organise a visit to the Gissing Centre and a tour of Gissing’s Wakefield.
· Gissing-related book stalls (notably The Idle Booksellers)
Conference Organiser: Dr Nicky Losseff (University of York)
Advisory Committee: Prof M.D. Allen (University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley); Prof Maria-Teresa Chialant (University of Salerno); Prof Pierre Coustillas (University of Lille); Prof Constance Harsh (Colgate University); Dr Christine Huguet (University of Lille); Dr Simon J. James (Durham University); Anthony Petyt (The Gissing Trust, Wakefield); Dr Bouwe Postmus (University of Amsterdam).
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