victorian

Mysteries and Mayhem is our fourth conference theme. Why do we continue to crave mystery stories?  What do they tell us about our need for suspense and our desire to solve riddles,  including the most famous of all:Whodunnit?  What do these stories of murder and mayhem teach us about the nature of evil, ideas of sin, and the essence of a villain? What do we hope to see in the survivors of these threats?  –And what do we expect from the detectives and heroes who reveal the truth in these stories? We seek papers and creative projects that explore these and related questions. 

YSLS (Young Scholars Literary Sympsium) welcomes your undergraduate,  graduate,  educator,  and independent scholar proposals! 

Chapter Proposal Abstract: Part I – Medieval Seeds

Beauty and the Revival of Faith will take place on 8-10 May, 2026, at the Archbishop’s Palace, Southwell, Nottingham, U.K. 

God Rest Ye Scary Gentlemen: The Jolly Misanthrope and Victorian Christmas.  Learn about the happiest time of the year, and the old men who love nothing better than to shit all over it. From Scrooge to Sherlock Holmes, what’s with confirmed bachelors and Christmas? An irreverent and illuminating romp through 19th Century Victorian Christmas, its origins in older traditions, Oliver Cromwell, how it became an institution worldwide, and how one cantankerous old man really ties the whole thing together!  This lecture will be a rollicking and intellectual hour and thirty minutes WITH a ten minute bathroom break.  Bring your humbugs, we’ll be breaking out the turkey dinners and coals! Ninety minutes of holiday cheer. 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Charles W. Chesnutt Association

American Literature Association
37th Annual ConferenceMay 20-23, 2026Palmer House
17 East Monroe Street
Chicago, IL  60603

The Charles W. Chesnutt Association welcomes abstracts of no more than 300 words for presentation at two sessions on the work of Chesnutt at the 2026 ALA conference in Chicago.

Subjects for submissions are open but may include one of the following:

Volcanic Materiality: Cultural Phenomena in the Age of the Anthropocene

Editor: Dewey W. Hall

Call for Contributions 

Irish-American(s and) Periodicals

Kirsten McLeod and Tim Lanzendörfer

Sponsored by the Research Society for American Periodicals

The Dickens Project is excited to announce a new week-long Victorianist Writing Retreat, held at UC Santa Cruz as part of our annual summer Dickens Universe conference. This retreat offers scholars who are not affiliated with Dickens Project consortium institutions the opportunity to attend the Universe, as well as to dedicate time during the week to writing in community.

In 2026, the Dickens Universe, including the Victorianist Writing Retreat, will take place from July 26-August 1. While the 2026 Universe will be focused on Bleak House, participants in the retreat need not be writing on Bleak House or on Dickens. Scholars working in any area of global British nineteenth-century studies are free to apply.

Special Issue

Shopping Fictions: Representing Shops and Shopping in British Literature and Culture

Call for Papers, Women’s Literature and Gender Studies at CEA 2026

March 26-28, 2026, Charlotte, NC

Hilton Charlotte University Place

In the spirit of public proclamation and historic resolve, the College English Association announces its 55th annual conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, and our theme, DECLARATIONS. The CEA conference features papers, panels, and roundtables that address our discipline from multiple perspectives.

Submit your proposal electronically by November 1, 2025, at www.cea-web.org

More Terrors than her Reason Could JustifyA 200th Anniversary Celebration of Ann Radcliffe’s Posthumous Publications

Contributions on varied dimensions of Popular Literature in the Nineteenth Century are invited for Volume XIII of Critical Imprints (ISSN: 2319-4774), the annual peer-reviewed journal of the Department of English, Loreto College, Kolkata.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Victorian SoundingsAuckland University of TechnologyAuckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, 25-26 June 2026 

Scholars of the nineteenth century have produced ground-breaking work in the interdisciplinary field of sound studies since its inception, and continue to as they help push the boundaries of the field and expand it in intriguing ways. Scholars are now exploring the importance of sound in connection to other areas, such as the interdependence of speaking, writing, reading, and listening; the sonic interconnections between the arts, science, and new technologies; and acoustic mediations in imperial encounters with indigenous peoples.

By 2026, all nine volumes of The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins will be published, including the much-anticipated final volume in the series, Poetry. The 2026 international Hopkins conference will focus on the new research possibilities and provocations afforded by the texts. Hopkins 2026 will be held in historic Salem, Massachusetts (USA), at Salem State University, and will feature a Hopkins display and reception at the Burns Library, Boston College.

Topics could include: