Nineteenth-Century Space-Times (ACCUTE 2017 Conference; Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, May 27-30, 2017)
The nineteenth century witnessed critical shifts in the perceptions of time and space. Developments in geology and biology suggested new, expansive notions of space and time, resulting in geological time scales and the concept of deep time. Meanwhile, as the introduction of Greenwich Mean Time standardized railway schedules, rail travel itself rendered the experience of space flexible as journey times decreased. Simultaneously, mathematical developments like non-Euclidean and higher-dimensional geometries initiated new ways of measuring space. How did nineteenth-century literature respond to these changing perceptions and experiences of space and time?