victorian

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)

In bell hooks’ Belonging: A Culture of Place (2009), she posits that “many folks feel no sense of place” (1). She continues by explaining her personal experience with this spatiality, noting that, “Like many of my contemporaries I have yearned to find my place in this world, to have a sense of homecoming, a sense of being wedded to a place” (2). To that end, a commonality shared between all humans is a searching for a place in which we belong, and this is particularly evident in literature that is produced during times of major societal events.

“Unruly Realism: Conventions and Contestations in 19th-Century American Realist Fiction”

Workshop at the University of Erfurt – November 26 - 27, 2026

Co-organized by Ilka Saal (Erfurt) and Antonia Purk (Mannheim)

This panel invites proposals that examine acts of remembrance and care of an individual’s or a collective’s past that lead to empowerment and change. Papers may address historical or contemporary works in art, architecture, film, recordings, and literature, and may engage theoretical, critical, pedagogical, or archival practices. Drawing from Valérie Perrin’s novels Forgotten on Sundays (2015) and Fresh Water for Flowers (2019), soon to be on the screen by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, memory work enables individuals to feel visible, situate themselves in a collective, and solve piece puzzles through inquiry. Such work is often relegated to women’s labor, caregivers, and hired help who go beyond roles and job duties to make personal connections.

The British Women Writers Association (BWWA) seeks organizers for our
2028 conference and beyond, both in the United States and abroad. The
BWWA’s mission is to bring women from the margins to the center of
literary history by promoting scholarship on and the teaching of long
18th-and 19th-century British women writers in diverse global and
cultural contexts. In practice, the conference invites papers
addressing women’s writing as early as 1660 and as late as 1920,
inclusive of the work of transatlantic and Anglophone authors.

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.

This session focuses on British literature and culture of the long 19th century. Particularly welcome are proposals on underrepresented works, on the 150th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s proclamation as Empress of India and on the 125th anniversary of her passing, on Neo-Victorianism, and on the conference theme “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict.”

While any proposals dealing with British literature and culture of the long 19th century are welcome, these topics related to the conference theme are of special interest:

Modernist Nationalisms Conference

St John’s College, University of Oxford

Thursday 10th September 2026

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

Conference date: Saturday 10 October 2026

Format: in-person

Location: Senate House, London

The Journal of Dracula Studies is open for submissions for its upcoming 2026 issue. We invite manuscripts of scholarly articles (4000-6000 words) on any of the following: Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, the historical Dracula, the vampire in literature including folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics. Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .docx). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail.