bibliography and history of the book

The Centre for Textual Studies at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, is running a three-day international conference to  showcase and explore the latest methods for analyzing literary and historical texts using computers. A particular focus will be the ways in which literary and historical scholarship will turn increasingly algorithmic in the future as we invent wholly new kinds of questions to ask of our texts because we have wholly new ways to investigate them. The conference will bring together, and put into fruitful dialogue, scholars using traditional literary and historical methods and those exploring and inventing new computational methods, to their mutual benefit.

Call for Chapters:
Access, Control, and Dissemination in Digital Humanities

(Edited book for Routledge)

2019 marks the 300th anniversary of the publication of Love in Excess, the still-popular work of fiction that launched the print career of one of the most important authors of the entire eighteenth century. The Early Atlantic Reading Group at Purdue University therefore calls for papers and non-fatal enquiries in celebration of all aspects of Eliza Haywood’s work, career, and world (such expansive topics might include bibliography, women’s book history, theatricals, the Hillarians, or even Haywood and Crusoe—which also marks its 300th birthday in 2019). Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words to Manushag N. Powell (mnpowell@purdue.edu) on or before August 20, 2018.

In his recent polemical piece, noted academic and cultural critic, Timothy Brennan calls Digital Humanities, a “bust” and declares: “[a]fter a decade of investment and hype, what has the field accomplished? Not much.” Brennan’s critique of DH, amongst others, is that “[DH] promises to break the book format without explaining why one might want to — even as books, against all predictions, doggedly persist, filling the airplane hangar- sized warehouses of Amazon.com.” What remains potently interesting is that Brennan’s questioning of DH and its machine-oriented methodology[ies] is itself rooted in an Anglo-American episteme: one that has continuously promoted the “print medium” as the only legitimate paradigm for advancing worthwhile humanistic inquiry.

Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence

at the Midwest Modern Language Association Conference

15-18 November, Kansas City, Missouri 

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in keeping with the M-MLA conference’s theme of “Consuming Cultures,” is sponsoring panels on the consumption of manuscripts.  This consumption can be both literal—for example, the destruction wrought by bookworms, fires, and biblioclasts—or metaphorical—where “consuming” can mean textual transmission and reception more broadly.  We invite all approaches, including textual, art historical, codicological, and paleographical as well as all periods.

The LLC 16th-Century English Forum of the Modern Langage Association is organizing a panel on Flattery.

The panel will be on the program for the 2019 MLA conference in Chicago, IL.

We are seeking new research on political, poetical, rhetorical, literary, hypocritical, artificial, dramatic, erotic, sniveling, strategic, or otherwise noteworthy examples or discussions of flattery in English texts, c. 1500-1600.

Please send Abstracts of 150-200 Words to Adam Zucker (azucker@english.umass.edu) by March 15th.

The WMS is seeking submissions for the following session, co-sponsored with The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, for the 2019 MLA Convention. Please note that this session is not guaranteed (and is subject to approval by the MLA):

This session seeks new perspectives on publishing William Morris and his circle. Topics might focus on Morris as publisher, on illustrations, on printing, or on the physical format of the book. We especially welcome papers that address publications outside of the Kelmscott Press, and/or that feature book history or digital humanities approaches. 

MARIA EDGEWORTH 250

6-8 December 2018, Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin

Call for Papers

Miss Edgeworth is at Abbotsford, and has been for some time; a little, dark, bearded, sharp, withered, active, laughing, talking, impudent, fearless, outspoken, honest, Whiggish, unchristian, good-tempered, kindly, ultra-Irish body. I like her one day, and damn her to perdition the next. She is a very queer character; particulars some other time.

John Gibson Lockhart, quoted in Christopher North: A Memoir of John Wilson.

Edited Volume: The Modern Short Story and the Magazines: 1880-1950 – eds Elke D’hoker and Chris Mourant

This essay collection aims to bring together and represent the growing body of research into the close ties between the modern short story and magazine culture in the period 1880-1950 in Britain and Ireland.

Submissions are being accepted on an ongoing basis for upcoming issues of Catholic Library World. 

Catholic Library World is the official journal of the Catholic Library Association. Established in 1929, CLW is a peer reviewed association journal. CLW publishes articles focusing on all aspects of librarianship, especially as it relates to Catholic Studies and Catholicism. CLW articles are intended for an audience that is interested in the broad role and impact of various types of libraries, including, but not limited to academic, public, theological, parish and church libraries, and school libraries. 

MLA 2019 - Chicago

Session sponsored by the Forum on Bibliography and Scholarly Editing

Participants in this interactive poster session will demonstrate classroom lessons and/or assignments that interrogate material-textual objects using those same objects.

250-word abstracts due to Ryan Cordell (r.cordell@northeastern.edu) by 15 March 2018. 

WRITING LIVES IN EUROPE, 1500-1700University College Dublin, 6-8 September 2018 Call for Papers  This conference on life writing/self writing will address questions related to life writing across Europe between1500-1700, in particular the influence of different religious, social, cultural and national perspectives on theemergence of various forms of self-writing. We are particularly interested in relationships, connections, textualtraffic and circulation across Europe through networks such as intellectual circles/coteries, religious orders, andthe experience of exiled communities. Life writing has long historical roots, but such writings are arguably thefirst examples of demotic, vernacular writing in the period.

The Restoration and Eighteenth Century British Literature panel of the SCMLA is now accepting abstracts for the 2018 conference. This panel is open to all approaches and topics that relate to the Long Eighteenth Century. Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words along with a brief biographical note to Dr. Joel T. Terranova at jtt9554@louisiana.edu

For more information about the 2018 SCMLA conference, please see: http://www.southcentralmla.org/conference/

The submission deadline is 31 March 2018.

Rebecca Harding Davis at ALA 2018

Deadline for Submissions Extended: January 26, 2018

The Society for the Study of Rebecca Harding Davis and Her World

Contact Email:

sbgray@langston.edu ; ajrovan@mix.wvu.edu

The Society for the Study of Rebecca Harding Davis and Her World welcomes proposals for two sessions at the next meeting of the American Literature Association. The conference will be held May 24-27, 2018 in San Francisco, CA.