British literature of the 1800s has a close relationship to archival forms and practices. With a boom in bureaucratic record-keeping, extensive imperial documentation, meticulous medical and legal case histories, and the development of libraries and institutional archives, Victorian literary texts frequently include, copy, or contest letters, ledgers, case files, diaries, and serialized records. By engaging with and appropriating formal aspects of “the archive,” Victorian literature often blurred the boundaries between history and literature, fact and fiction, what is real and what is constructed. But who was keeping records? And of whom? This permanent section “English II: English Literature 1800-1900” seeks 12-15 minute papers that explore how archives and archivists shape our understanding of nineteenth-century British literature. We welcome work that engages with physical archives, digital archives, archival theory, or representations of the archive within literary texts.Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• The archive as formal technology or narrative structure in the nineteenth-century novel
• Literary engagement with bureaucratic, legal, medical, or imperial archives
• Characters or authors who act as archivists
• Archival gaps, silences, and erasures in Victorian literary history
• Manuscripts, marginalia, notebooks, and other material traces of authorship
• Archival approaches to serialization, print culture, and periodicals
• Digital humanities and the nineteenth-century literary archive
• Archival recovery of marginalized or overlooked writers and communities
• The politics of preservation, curation, and institutional archives
• Fictional archives, found documents, and documentary aesthetics
• Archives of addiction, medicine, or social regulation in nineteenth-century texts

We welcome papers on authors across the long nineteenth century, including canonical and lesser known authors and texts. Please submit a 250–300 word abstract and brief bio (50-100 words) to Katie Brandt kbrand7@uic.edu by April 25th, 2026. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 1st, 2026. *Note: This conference does not support virtual attendance or audio/visual components. Please plan accordingly.