Volcanic matter really matters. During a one hundred year span from the 1780s to 1880s, a series of volcanic eruptions occurred that altered the atmosphere, disrupted weather conditions, and caused unprecedented loss due to famine and widespread disease: Laki Iceland (1783-1784); Vesuvius, Italy (1794); Pico Viejo, Canary Islands (1798); Tambora, Indonesia (1815); Ferdinandea, Sicily (1831); Hekla, Iceland (1840, 1845); and Krakatoa, Indonesia (1883). Various critics have written about the systemic effects geologically, meteorologically, and ecologically such as Richard Altick, David Higgins, Monique Morgan, Marilynn Olsen, Nicholas Robbins, Jesse Oak Taylor, and Gillen D’Arcy Wood.

A variety of writers and artists documented the effects due, in part to a great extent, to the eruptions, which may include the sky watchers identified, but are not limited to the following.

In literary studies, one might think of literary and non-literary records:

*Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne (1789) in response to the effects of the Laki eruption

*William Wordsworth's Lucy poems written in Goslar, Germany (e.g., "Strange fits of passion" and "A slumber did my spirit seal") influenced by the Pico Viejo eruption

*George Gordon, Lord Byron's "Darkness" (1816) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus (1818) in response to the Tambora eruption

*Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Remarkable Sunsets" in Nature (1883) and John Ruskin's "The 'Storm-Cloud' of the Nineteenth Century" (1884) shaped by the Krakatoa eruption

In visual art, a host of artists captured the dramatic stratovolcanic eruptions and the sky altering effects:

*Joseph Wright of Derby's Vesuvius from Portici (1774-1776)

*J.M.W. Turner's Eruption of Soufriere Mountain (1812)

*J.M.W. Turner's Vesuvius in Eruption (1817)

*Caspar David Friedrich's Woman before the Rising or Setting Sun (1818-1824)

*Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnieres (1884)

*William Ascroft's Twilight and afterglow effects at Chelsea (1888)

The in-person panel invites cross-disciplinary papers that may delve into literary studies, history of art, geology, volcanology, and meteorology etc. focusing on the volcanic imagination as recorded in literary and visual art. For consideration, please submit an abstract (200-250 words) and biography (100 words) through the NeMLA portal. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Dewey W. Hall, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona at dwhall@cpp.edu.