victorian

Panel: Precarious and Obsolete Spaces in the Novel

We form strong attachments with the spaces we inhabit, which shape us as we shape them. Spaces house our memories, provide opportunities for encounters, and alter our individual and collective identities. But what happens when these locations deteriorate, become obsolete, or disappear entirely? This panel invites papers considering representations of neglected, abandoned, or otherwise ephemeral spaces in novels from any period or location. We welcome papers on places and spaces of any scale: buildings, towns and cities, landscapes, even nations and worlds.  

Conference Location: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

American Literature Association: “Music and the American Literary Imagination” Symposium

January 28-30, 2027 in Nashville, Tennessee

CFP: “Sounding the Subject in the Nineteenth Century” 

Romanticism and Property

Canberra, 18-20 November, 2027

Women and/of the Empire(s): On the 150th Anniversary of Queen Victoria’s Proclamation as Empress of India (1876-2026)

29-30 October 2026

An international conference hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Faculdade de Letras), University of Porto, Portugal

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Ana Cristina Mendes (Professor of English Studies, University of Lisbon, President of the Association for Cultural Studies)
Martin Hewitt (President of the British Association for Victorian Studies, Visiting Professor of English, University of Leeds, Editor of the Curran Index)

Nineteenth-century British literature frequently interrogates the boundaries of community dynamics, examining not only what the individual contributes to a collective and what it means to belong, but how communal engagement fundamentally reshapes the individual. 

Consistent with the NeMLA 2027 theme, "Empowering Communities," this panel explores a vital dual imperative within the nineteenth-century British novel: the structural tension between individuals whose actions serve to empower their communities, and communities that conversely function to shield and empower otherwise fragile individuals.

Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature invites article submissions on the topic of “planetary precarity” for its Winter 2027 issue. This special issue will consider how precarity is produced on both local and global scales. As we confront our own possible extinction-level threats caused by climate disaster and, supposedly, a future dominated by artificial superintelligence, we seek to investigate how the Victorians reconceived their own precarity in the face of extractive capitalism and ecological crisis.

The Forum Section invites scholars to reflect on the different ways that their research and/or pedagogy has intertwined with their lives in relation to the theme of the Volume. It is a more immediate exploration of how one’s research is shaped out of one’s personal experiences and positionalities. This section was introduced in 2023, encouraging contributors to experiment with styles outside academic writing to tease out the intricacies of pedagogy, research, and lived experience. Forum pieces can be more personal and self-reflective, and can include open ended enquiries. There are aspects of research that never make it to the research paper.

2028 will mark the two hundredth anniversary of Thomas Lovell Beddoes’s completion of the first version of his masterpiece Death’s Jest-Book. This special issue of Studia Neophilologica, coinciding also with the centenary of a journal that has been the home of many significant essays on Beddoes’s writings, will offer new readings and accounts of Beddoes’s life, work, and reputation.

Contributions are invited for essays between 5 and 8,000 words on all aspects of Beddoes’s career. Topics might include:

I am pleased to announce that registration is open for the 18th annual hybrid conference of the Victorian Popular Fiction Association (VPFA) on the topic of 'The Victorians and Their Publics'. You can access the VPFA conference registration page here.

Abstracts are invited for a traditional panel session to be held at the annual meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, scheduled for 5-7 November 2026 at the Wyndham Atlanta Buckhead Hotel and Conference Center, Atlanta, GA, USA. 

This session intends to explore the theme of “hospitality” in the works of Joseph Conrad in order to highlight how Conrad’s relationships both reflected and influenced his literary output throughout his career. Some relationships were more enduring than others, but all had an impact, often a profound impact, on his life and writing.

Adolfo Ibáñez University and the consortium of institutions sponsoring this event are delighted to invite you to the 2027 World Congress of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies, centered on the theme “Global Imaginaries, Maritime Power, and Intercontinental Circulations: the Ambivalent Legacies of the Long Nineteenth Century.” The congress will be held in Viña del Mar, overlooking the port city of Valparaíso.     

Dear colleagues,

Are you planning your summer writing projects—or revising an article and considering where to submit it? The editors of Nineteenth Century Studies are now accepting submissions for the 2027 volume. The deadline for consideration is October 1, 2026; submissions received after this date may be considered for the 2028 volume.

We’re delighted to announce a new online event to mark Dickens’s passing. On this occasion, our theme does not dwell on the Inimitable’s death, but focuses instead on his ever-expanding life on the big and small screen. Dickens was first adapted for silent cinema in 1901, and since then his work has appeared countless times on film and television. Since Dickens’s Bicentenary in 2012, a number of significant screen adaptations have appeared, including Armando Iannucci’s Personal History of David Copperfield (2019), Steven Knight’s Great Expectations (2023), two Artful Dodger character adaptations, and multiple versions of A Christmas Carol.

Call for Papers: Dickens Day 2026 - ‘Dickens and Family’

Conference date: Saturday 10 October 2026

Format: in-person

Location: Senate House, London