category: victorian

International Conference on Romanticism, September 26-29, 2013

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:33:24 -0400

2013 International Conference on Romanticism
"Romantic Relations"
September 26-29, 2013
Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan

The International Conference on Romanticism would love to increase the presence of Americanists at its annual conference-- all the more so given our globalist, transnational, transatlantic critical moment. We are extending the deadline for submissions until June 1st. We hope Americanists working across areas of 18th and 19th century studies will consider joining us.

This year's conference returns to metro Detroit and Oakland University (site of the 2008 meeting). In keeping with the spirit of this organization, the conference organizers wish to focus on the cross-disciplinary and international aspects of Romanticism. The conference theme is Romantic Relations, which should be interpreted in its broadest contexst. Possible topics could include but should not be limited to:

Cross-national and Transatlantic relations
Romantic race relations
Colonial relations
Relationships in the arts and music
Relations of Romantic Science
Romantic relations/relationships
Familial relationships
Romantic Others
Animal relationships
Class relations
Labor relations
Gender relationships
Intertextualities
War and Peace
Boundary and border crossings
Critical relations
Romantic Collaborations
Philosophical relationships
Interdisciplinary Romanticism
Romantic travel

Abstracts for complete panels and individual papers are welcome. Please send 300 word abstracts to Rob Anderson (r2anders@oakland.edu) or Chris Clason (clason@oakland.edu). Deadline in June 1.

Conference organizers: Chris Clason, Rob Anderson, Jennifer Law-Sullivan, Jeffrey Insko

ICR 2013: http://www.oakland.edu/ICR2013

ICR Homepage: http://icr.byu.edu

[UPDATE] SAMLA 2013: (Con)Textual Networks and the Globalized Caribbean (due June 10)

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:39:01 -0400

2013 SAMLA CONFERENCE, NOV 8-10, ATLANTA

SPECIAL SESSION: "(Con)Textual Networks and the Globalized Caribbean"

We often think of globalization as a contemporary phenomenon, characterized by the way high-speed technologies have changed everything from market dynamics to social relations. Many scholars, however, see the current phase of globalization as part of an historical process beginning as early as the sixteenth century. The Caribbean has, indeed, been a transnational site from the time of its original European colonization, soon followed by the importation of coerced labor from Africa, South Asia, and China. Today, the region remains populated by a wide variety of ethnic groups, highly trafficked by tourists from around the world, and economically tied to foreign currencies and markets. Additionally, high rates of migration from the Caribbean to North America and Europe have created an immense Caribbean diaspora that retains cultural and economic ties to the region, facilitated in part by new technologies and alliances.

Images of the Caribbean have thus been documented, constructed, and circulated globally from the rise of print culture to the dawn of the digital age. This panel seeks proposals engaging any aspect of the conference theme, “Cultures, Contexts, Images, Texts: Making Meaning in Print, Digital, and Networked Worlds,” in relation to literature and/or other media from any part of the Anglophone Caribbean.

Some possible topics include:

The “digital humanities” and Caribbean studies
Visual images of the Caribbean
Cartographic representations of the Caribbean
Caribbean service economies—tourism, textiles and “free trade” zones, data mining, banking, etc.
Regionalism, Nationalism, Transnationalism
Marketing the Caribbean/the Caribbean market
Intra-Caribbean exchange and migration
Local and regional grassroots activist networks in the Caribbean
Caribbean diasporas—cultural, economic, and/or social networks

Please submit an abstract of 200-300 words and a brief bio (not CV) of <100 words, in Word or PDF, to Kristine A. Wilson (wilson67@purdue.edu). DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JUNE 10, 2013.

Apollon eJournal - Undergraduate Submissions deadline 6/15/2013

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:43:39 -0400

Check the website, apollonejournal.org, for submission details on publication, or for an application to work with us

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Apollon invites undergraduate students to get published in, review submissions for, or help edit a the third issue of our peer-reviewed eJournal, Apollon. By publishing superior examples of undergraduate academic work, Apollon highlights the importance of undergraduate research in the humanities. Apollon welcomes submissions that feature image, text, sound, and a variety of presentation platforms in the process of showcasing the many species of undergraduate research.

ABOUT THE PROJECT
Apollon, an undergraduate humanities eJournal, is a peer-reviewed publication for undergraduate humanities majors. Apollon features undergraduate research developed in humanities courses, and thus emphasizes faculty-student collaborations beyond the classroom. We invite interested students to join us by contributing leadership or original work to Apollon. Our student team participates at all levels of this ongoing project (design, review, and publication) to offer their peers a real outlet for intellectual work in the humanities. For more information you can go to the program website, www.apollonejournal.org, talk to your professors, or contact the Faculty Director, Jason Cohen, at (859) 985-3765 or cohenj@berea.edu.

[UPDATE] Irish Gothic Conference 5-6 December, 2013

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:35:56 -0400

Confirmed Speakers:

• Professor W. J. McCormack (Former Professor of Literary History at Goldsmiths College, University of London)
• Dr Laura Pelaschiar (Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Università di Trieste)
• Dr Derek Hand (Senior Lecturer in English, Saint' Patrick's College, Dublin City University)

Gothic studies have recently been expanding previous limits of what was once thought to be an historically well defined genre. The extent of continual change in Gothic denotation is such that it is now approaching the status of an inter-genre inter-semiotic category. This is even more the case with Irish literature. Not only because a remarkable number of Gothic writers are Irish, but also, and more significantly, because Ireland has provided an extremely fruitful cultural background for the particular narrative forms and devices that are usually associated with the Gothic. Moreover, Irish literature presents a “gothicness” of its own, whereby it seems to simultaneously adhere to and reject the ideological and aesthetic models implied by the very notion of Gothic.

At this conference we will explore the ways in which Irish Gothic can/cannot be considered part of the mainstream Gothic tradition, as well as investigating the origins and evolution of the genre in an Irish context.

We welcome submissions addressing any topic relevant to Irish studies, and encourage papers, which explore any aspect of the Irish Gothic in literature, film, and other media.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Irish Gothic vs English Gothic
• The Birth of Irish Gothic
• Theorising Irish Gothic
• Irish Gothic Modernisms
• The Uncanny in Irish Fiction
• Victorian Irish Gothic
• Irish Gothic Geography
• Irish Gothic in the Media
• Irish Gothic Art
• Irish Gothic and Psychology
• Irish Gothic and Imperialism
• Irish Gothic and Science
• Irish Gothic and Technology
• Irish Gothic and Popular “Goth” Culture
• Irish Gothic and History

Abstracts (250 words max) for 20 minute papers and a short bio-sketch may be submitted to Enrico Terrinoni (Università per Stranieri di Perugia) and Annalisa Volpone (Università degli Studi di Perugia): perugiairishgothic@gmail.com.
Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2013.
Accepted speakers will be notified by September 20.
Conference fee: Euro 25; Euro 15 for students and the unwaged

Memsahibs as Imagined and Imaged by Male Writers (Deadline: September 30, 2013)

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:09:22 -0400

Session Title: MEMSAHIBS AS IMAGINED AND IMAGED BY MALE WRITERS

45th Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
April 3-6, 2014
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Host: Susquehanna University

Session Description:
The memsahib is perhaps the most maligned figure among the Raj women. This panel invites scholarly articles on how male writers represent the memsahib in their writings, and how they depict her impact on and/or relationship with British India.

Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:
• Critical analysis of literature on memsahibs
• Letters, memoirs, fiction and non-fiction about memsahibs (not by memsahibs)
• Memsahib’s relationship with and contribution to British India
• The Raj machinery and the role of the memsahib
• Home-building and Empire-building
• Memsahib’s role in the success and/or failure of colonization
• Memsahib and the trauma of the Indian Mutiny
• Memsahib and racism
• Memsahib and the ‘myth of the destructive female’
• Colonized and colonizer women
• Memsahibs as ‘maternal imperialists’
• Unconventional memsahibs; what makes them unconventional?
• Study of gender and imperialism
• Intra-racial tensions, if any, in the gaze of memsahibs
• Life at Home and out in the Colony
• Sense of exile and pain of alienation
• Femininity and/or feminism in memsahib’s female gaze

Please feel free to share your ideas for papers even if they are about literary depiction of white women in other British colonies.

Email: Dr Susmita Roye (sroye@desu.edu) with a 300-word abstract.

Deadline: September 30, 2013

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 2014 NeMLA convention continues the Association's tradition of sharing innovative scholarship in an engaging and generative location. This capitol city set on the Susquehanna River is known for its vibrant restaurant scene, historical sites, the National Civil War museum, and nearby Amish Country, antique shops and Hershey Park. NeMLA has arranged low hotel rates of $104-$124.

The 2014 event will include guest speakers, literary readings, professional events, and workshops. A reading by George Saunders will open the Convention. His 2013 collection of short fiction, The Tenth of December, has been acclaimed by the New York Times as “the best book you’ll read this year.” The Keynote speaker will be David Staller of Project Shaw.

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. http://www.nemla.org/convention/2014/cfp.html

SAMLA Special Session on Creating or Expanding a BA Program in English During Uncertain Times (June 20th- Abstract Deadline)

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:05:03 -0400

This panel invites participants from any college or university where there is an interest in building a B.A. in English or establishing a new programmatic track within the discipline. Participants need not be at any particular point in the process, and we hope to incorporate a diverse array of experiences and viewpoints. In other words, participants may only be thinking about the possibility of creating a program or they might be on the other side of the process. This panel will also consider what types of programs should/need to be created to meet the changing needs of students in the 21st century. We hope that this session will produce a vibrant dialogue that will serve as a bridge to future cooperation.

Because of the collaborative nature of this panel, we would like to create a roundtable atmosphere in which the audience plays an active role. Participants will each provide an informal 5-10 minute talk about their experiences and the advice they have about the process and then the rest of the session will be dedicated to having an open dialogue.

Instead of traditional proposals, those interested should send a brief 250 word description of their experiences and what they would like to gain from participating in the panel. Accepted descriptions will be shared with all participants to help generate a productive discussion. In order to be considered, these descriptions should be sent to SOrtolano@Edison.edu by June 20th.

Featured Speaker: Dr. Kristie Fleckenstein, Professor of English at Florida State University; co-collaborator in the creation and administration of FSU's undergraduate program in Editing, Writing, and Media

International Journal of Welsh Writing in English (deadline September 2013)

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:39:20 -0400

International Journal for Welsh Writing in English

Call for Papers

The International Journal of Welsh Writing in English invites submissions for a special issue on the theme ‘Literary Topographies: Place, spatiality, cartography and Welsh Writing in English.

Guest Editors: Kirsti Bohata & Matthew Jarvis.

Welsh writing in English has a long tradition of writing ‘place’. The recent spatial turn in literary criticism has led to a productive exchange of ideas with new geography, cultural history and digital technologies. The complex ways in which literature engages with place have begun to challenge and expand methodologies in other fields at the same time as they have presented literary scholars with dynamic new avenues of critical enquiry. Innovative approaches exploring the intersections between literary texts and cartographic representations of place are being enabled by digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Alongside such scholarly developments, there has been a clearly identifiable resurgence in new writing from Wales that addresses the topographical, geo-political, personal and historical dimensions of our ongoing relationship with place and space.

The editors would welcome essays based on papers delivered at the recent conference on the theme of literary topographies, but new submissions on this topic are encouraged.

We also invite contributions on the other main areas of interest of the journal, particularly Dylan Thomas’s centenary (2014).

International Journal of Welsh Writing in English

The remit of the journal is to publish new research within the field of Welsh writing in English. We explicitly encourage comparative approaches, drawing not only on cognate disciplines (such as cultural studies, history, drama/performance, creative writing, film/media studies) but also making entirely new connections with disciplines such as medicine (medical humanities), computer science (digital humanities), (applied) mathematics (statistical methodologies within the humanities), and environmental science (environment, culture, place). The journal seeks to promote work, which brings English-language material into the richest of dialogues with Welsh-language literary culture. It also seeks to make connections between Welsh writing in English and applied/non-academic areas of literary life, such as the creative industries, heritage, publishing and policy-making.

The next issue of the journal is going to be published in September/October 2014.
The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2013.
For submission guidelines please see http://ijwwe.wordpress.com.
Please send any queries to the editor Dr Alyce von Rothkirch at ijwwe.editor@gmail.com.

REMINDER 'in:flux 1845-1945: A Century in Motion' Postgraduate Conference (27th June 2013) DEADLINE 17.05.13

Tue, 14 May 2013 06:51:37 -0400

'in:flux 1845-1945: A Century in Motion'

University of Birmingham, 27th June 2013

Keynote speaker – Dr Matthew Rubery, Queen Mary University of London

Interdisciplinary postgraduate conference – call for papers

How did the rapid period of industrialisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries help to shape societies and lifestyles in the West? What types of social changes, movements and developments characterise this time period? This interdisciplinary postgraduate conference, in affiliation with the Centre for the Study of Cultural Modernity and hosted by the College of Arts and Law, seeks to explore the various ways in which this century was one of ‘motion’, in every sense of the word. The conference title seeks to encapsulate both the uncertainty and upheaval of this period as well as the physical and cultural movements that occurred at this time. We invite papers addressing these themes from postgraduate researchers and early-career academics working on this period from a variety of backgrounds.
Topics could include, but are not limited to:

Cultural or social movements
• political movements
• the Women’s Movement
• arts movements (musical, artistic, literary)
• religious and philosophical
• popular cultural trends (food, fashion, advertising)

Physical movements
• mass movement of people (mobilisation of soldiers, migration from towns to cities)
• transatlantic and inter-continental travel (including emigration and immigration)
• leisure and tourism
• transport
• changing landscapes

Development and progress
• media (cinema, audio technology and radio, print media)
• scientific and medical advances
• technology
• economic growth and/or recession
• development of nationhood

These headings are suggestions only; we welcome proposals exploring crossovers between these topics, or addressing them from interdisciplinary perspectives. Abstracts of 250-300 words for 20 minute papers along with a short biographical note of no more than 50 words should be sent to pgculturalmodernity@contacts.bham.ac.uk by the 17th May 2013. We welcome any questions that you may have; please do not hesitate to contact us at the above address.

For more information about the Centre for the Study of Cultural Modernity please visit their website:
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/culturalmodernity/index.as...

@pgculturalmod
www.facebook.com/pgculturalmod http://pgculturalmodernity.wordpress.com

NeMLA 2014 Monstrous Maternity: Mothering Monsters, and Monsters as Mothers, Deadline 9/30/13

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:33:17 -0400

Monstrous Maternity: Mothering Monsters, and Monsters as Mothers

45th Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
April 3-6, 2014
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Host: Susquehanna University

Historically, the flaws of offspring have been placed as a burden on the mother, marking the maternal figure as responsible for all aspects of her progeny's development; if a child is born with a deformity then a shock experienced during gestation is to be blamed, and if a child suffers from a caustic disposition it is the mother's care that comes under scrutiny. These questions continue to be reflected in literature and film, as texts seek to place blame for monstrous acts, and texts seek to find a space for maternity in the monstrous or supernatural. So what can be said of the mothers of monsters? Or of the offspring of monstrous women? This panel proposes an examination of the subject of monstrosity and maternity as presented in literature and film, from *Beowulf* to *Wuthering Heights*, ‘Psycho’ to 'Mommy Dearest' to ‘Twilight’, examining the development of monsters as both mothers and progeny, and how the maternal role contributes to the defining of what is monstrous.

Areas of interest include:
• Mothers in Gothic novels
• The absent mother in monster literature
• Monstrous mothers
• Mothering monsters
• Depictions of monstrous mothers in film
• The question of blame and the true crime genre
• Supernatural motherhood
• Alternative maternity in literature and film

This panel will examine the correlation between motherhood and monstrosity, as represented and defined in both literature and film. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: mothers in gothic literature, the absent mother in monster texts, monstrous mothers, mothering monsters, depictions of monstrous mothers in film, the question of blame and true crime, supernatural motherhood, and alternative maternity in literature and film. Please send proposals and brief biographical notes to A.L. Mishou, USNA, almishou@gmail.com.

Deadline: September 30, 2013
Please include with your abstract:
Name and Affiliation
Email address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)

Science and Fiction: Literary Darwinism

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:24:51 -0400

The 55th Annual Convention will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center from November 7-10, 2013.

Topic: Literary Darwinism

I am still seeking papers that explore Darwin and Literature. What are the links between evolutionary psychology/biology and fiction? In what ways might evolutionary theory assist in the understanding and analysis of fiction? This panel will focus on fiction through biology and evolutionary theory.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Kevin Swafford, swafford@bradley.edu

Chair: Kevin Swafford, Bradley University