victorian

Invisible Wounds: Reframing Adoption Narratives in Children's Literature

MLA 2027 Convention: January 7-10, 2027, in Los Angeles, California 

Our Victorians, Ourselves: Rethinking Victorian Texts & Contexts

An online student conference hosted by the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Victorian Association (UGSVA)

Conference on April 28th, 2026 and Abstracts due March 31st, 2026

Keynote:

Sarah Bliss, Florida State University

“Reading the Forest with the Trees: Victorian Fiction and Periodicals”

Interactive Closing Session:

Sabarno Sinha, University of Texas at Austin

“UnConferencing (v. 1860): The Black-Out Victorian Poetry Edition”

The Patrick Leary Resource Development Grant is named for long-time RSVP supporter, Board member and former President, Patrick Leary. It is intended to support one scholar or a team of researchers in creating resources that will facilitate the work of other scholars in their studies of British newspapers and periodicals from the long nineteenth century. The grant was created with funds from a generous bequest to RSVP by the late Eileen Curran, pioneering researcher and Emerita Professor of English at Colby College.

Microgrants are seed grants designed to support new research projects and/or explore ideas in the field of periodical studies.

The Microgrants scheme was established in response to the 2025 survey of RSVP’s members, who informed us that they would benefit greatly from access to smaller pockets of funding for existing or exploratory projects. (For our full list of awards, please see the Eligibility chart). The funding for these grants is made possible through the generosity of the late Eileen Curran, Professor Emerita of English, Colby College, and inspired by her pioneering research on Victorian periodicals.

The Incredible Nineteenth Century: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fairy Tale will host its fourth annual conference via Zoom  May 1-2. This conference is completely free. We will be accepting proposals for presentations through April 4th.

The Gaskell Journal invites applications for the position of co-Editor.

The Gaskell Journal is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published annually, dedicated to disseminating the most authoritative, dynamic and agenda-setting research in Gaskell Studies. It is owned by the Gaskell Society and is distributed to its members, as well as being indexed in various academic databases (for more details, see The Gaskell Journal – The annual Journal of the Gaskell Society). In a typical issue, the journal publishes 3-4 original articles, 3-4 book reviews, and reports from the Society’s branches across the UK and the world.

Call for abstracts for proposed articlesTo Be Forever Known: The Brontës and Poetry

Personhood is having a cultural moment. The ambiguous status of agency and rights animates compelling and diverse critical responses: from studies of animals, AI, and fetal protection laws (Kurki and Pietrzykowski, 2017), to Frankenstein as a model for corporate personhood (Atkinson, 2022), to anthropocentric ideas of personhood versus the environment (Rochford, 2024), to studies of  “potential people” including chatbots and embryos (Kalantry 2025).

Final call! Submit by February 1st.BWWC 2026: Call for Papers

We are pleased to share our CFP for the forthcoming seminar at the ESSE conference to be held in Santiago de Compostela(Spain) from 31st August to 4th September 2026. Proposals are to be sent to the three convenors listed below by 31 January 2026.

The Victorians Institute Journal (VIJ) is still accepting submissions through April 1st for Volume 53, which will be published later this year. The VIJ is an award-winning scholarly journal of Victorian and Edwardian literary and cultural studies. The VIJ publishes a variety of pieces, including articles, reviews, and rare texts. For further details on the Victorians Institute Journal, visit 

Victorian popular fiction is replete with animals – racing horses, loyal dogs, caged birds, exotic creatures, and anthropomorphic companions. These beings carried immense symbolic significance: they could function as status symbols, metaphors for the body or soul, expressions of sentiment, or instruments of moral instruction. Animals also frequently offered a lens through which Victorians addressed issues surrounding empire, industrialisation, science, social mobility, and domesticity. In popular fiction, animals were not merely background – they were moral barometers, class indicators, narrative devices, and symbols of broader anxieties regarding industrialisation, gender roles, and empire.

Perhaps the most relevant question we are facing today, both in and out of the university, is how to deal with AI. In academia, different disciplines handle this question in a myriad of ways, some insisting that to not embrace AI in the classroom is harmful to the students, while others believe the utilization of AI must weaken critical thinking skills. Regardless of the differing opinions on how to use it appropriately, no one disagrees that it is here to stay. Living through the development of this world-changing technology means that we are the ones facing the question of what it means to live well in the age of AI.

Reminder: CFP due soon. Please reach out with any questions!

Special Issue, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film Call for Papers: 

Adapting Thackeray