Bram Stoker loved Trinity College, and spent, arguably, his happiest years here. He was Auditor of the Historical Society and President of the Philosophical Society, and a member of very many College sporting societies. However, despite his vampire creation, Dracula, being world-famous, and in spite of the spate of academic studies of the novel in which he first appeared, Stoker himself remains a figure shrouded in some darkness and his other writings are virtually unknown and ignored by those who have heard of him. A public conference, to be held in Stoker's alma mater in Dublin, where he was born and grew up, will address this large gap. The main aim of the conference will be to try to read Stoker in the round, expanding the critical focus away from an exclusive obsession with Dracula and taking account of the full extent of Stoker's writing. Moreover, it is a conference which will involve major international academics specialising in Bram Stoker, bringing them to Ireland with the aim of getting them to engage more fully with the world of Stoker's early years. The conference will be held in a year of activities to mark the centenary of Stoker's death. The conference will be a forum for both debate about Stoker's life, but also for bringing new research to peers and the public for the first time.
The connection with Ireland will be fully examined, and Professor Roy Foster, one of the foremost historians of modern Ireland, will set Stoker in his historical context. Professor William Hughes, one of the first scholars to examine Stoker's writings 'Beyond Dracula', and the author of the best biography, Paul Murray, will also be giving plenary lectures.

Proposals for 20 minute papers are invited on any aspect of the life and/or work of Bram Stoker, to be sent to killeej@tcd.ie by 1 July 2011.