CFP: Size Matters: Scale and Proportion in Victorian Literature and Culture (11/15/06; NAVSA/ACCUTE, 5/26/07-5/29/07)
CFP: Size Matters: Scale and Proportion in Victorian Literature and
Culture (11/15/06; NAVSA/ACCUTE, 5/26/07-5/29/07)
Panel co-sponsored by NAVSA and ACCUTE (the Association of Canadian
College and University Teachers of English), for the Congress of the
Humanities and Social Sciences, to be held May 26 to May 29, 2007, at
the U of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
In a culture turned increasingly toward the outward and the material,
the Victorians often took measurable quantities as indices of value.
From the sheer heft of the three-decker novel to Isambard Kingdom
Brunel's Great Eastern, the largest steam-powered vessel in the world
at the time of its launch, from the mass of manufactured goods
assembled at the Crystal Palace, to the ever more numerous colonies
that made up the British Empire, the English took enormous pride in
the scale and proportion of their artistic, technological, and
political achievements. But while ?the bigger the better? might have
become a rule of thumb for many, others saw the glorification of
largeness as a cause for concern. Thomas Malthus raised alarms
concerning the untrammeled growth of the population, while poets and
painters pursing the doctrine of art for art's sake produced
exquisite miniatures in reaction to the bourgeois taste for the
massive and heavy. Size mattered for the Victorians, and matter
itself was a question of size.
Proposals are invited for this joint NAVSA/ACCUTE session. Possible
topics include, but are not limited to:
* the three-decker format for novels
* the long narrative poem
* the discourse of growth in the natural sciences
* urban sprawl
* population growth
* the information explosion
* imperial expansion
* mass social movements
* civic architecture and statuary (train stations, city halls,
public memorials, etc.)
* civil engineering (railways, telegraphs, steam ships, suspension
bridges, etc.)
* furniture and interior decoration
* the physical culture movement
* the rational clothing movement
Please send electronic copies of proposals (300-500 words), plus a
100-word abstract and brief biographical statement, to Christopher
Keep (<mailto:ckeep_at_uwo.ca>ckeep_at_uwo.ca) by November 15, 2006. Follow
this with hard copy mailed to:
Christopher Keep
Department of English
University College
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada
N6A 3K7
=========================
Christopher Keep
Associate Professor
Department of English
University College
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada
N6A 3K7
Tel: (519) 661-2111, ext. 85829
Fax: (519) 661-3776
Email: ckeep_at_uwo.ca
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Received on Mon Oct 09 2006 - 10:58:17 EDT