victorian

British nature writing can be understood as both a product of and a challenge to a western-style modernity that has created the conditions for its own unravelling. The tense that best captures these conditions is the future anterior. Scottish writer Kathleen Jamie, wandering through Bergen’s Natural History Museum, marvels at the ‘decaying bones of twenty-four cetacean skeletons crowded under the ceiling’. One whale skeleton alone, that of a gigantic blue, is ‘less an animal, more a narrative’. The different cetacean narratives add up to a devastating commentary to which even words such as ‘waste’ and ‘slaughter’ and ‘holocaust’ and ‘shame’ cannot do full justice.

Date: Saturday 24th November 2018 (10:00 – 18:00)

Location: Cardiff University

Organisers: Joan Passey (Exeter, jp374@exeter.ac.uk), Louise Benson-James (Bristol, louise.bensonjames@bristol.ac.uk), Jim Scown (Cardiff, scownj@cardiff.ac.uk)

Keynote: ‘Biggish Data: Friedrich Engels, Material Ecology, and Victorian Data’ by John Parham, University of Worcester

***DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO DECEMBER 1, 2018***

DEADLINE FOR PARTLOW PRIZE PAPER SUBMISSIONS REMAINS DECEMBER 1, 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS: 24th Annual Dickens Society Symposium -- July 26-28, 2019, Salt Lake City, UT

This volume will explore ‘ordinary writing’ – that is, ‘writing that is typically unseen or ignored and is primarily defined by its status as discardable’[1] – as an important new way in which to approach the power and identity of marginalised groups in Edwardian Britain (1901-1914). The Edwardian era is often described as a period of intense social conflict and upheaval marked by a heightened awareness of class consciousness, inequality and poverty. Vast social, political and economic changes led to an increasing mobilisation of the lower classes and women, while also bringing about a rise in the number of anarchists and revolutionaries.

Thirteenth Biennial Conference of the

Constance Fenimore Woolson Society

Constance Fenimore Woolson: Making Her Presence Felt in the World

Rollins College

Winter Park, Florida

April 4-7, 2019