‘Dickens’s Shakespeare’ Lecture: 7 July
Hilda Hulme Memorial Lecture
‘Dickens’s Shakespeare’ by Professor Michael Slater (Birkbeck College & Institute of English Senior Research Fellow). Chaired by Professor Barbara Hardy.
“Professor Slater, author of an acclaimed new biography of Dickens, will seek to explore the nature of the great novelist’s lifelong passion for Shakespeare’s work, his extraordinary knowledge of it as reflected in his extensive use of it in his own writings, and his vivid sense of being, in certain important respects, Shakespeare’s successor. Professor Slater will also be making reference to Dickens’s involvement with some of the leading contemporary interpreters of Shakespeare, notably his beloved friend William Charles Macready, ‘the eminent tragedian’.”
Wednesday 7 July: 6.00pm: The Beveridge Hall
Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London
TLS Review: Emily Dickinson’s White Dress
Kristie Blair on Dickinson, dresses and the shared language of Victorian fashions (reviews of work by Daneen Wardrop, Christine Bayles Kortsch and Galia Ofek)
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article7146756.ece
CFP: Violence and Reconciliation
The Second Annual Critical Theory Conference: Violence and Reconciliation
24th September 2010, University of Exeter (Call for Papers 12 July)
Keynote Speakers: Professor Michael Dillon (Lancaster) and Professor Scott Wilson (Kingston)
Introduced by Professor Regenia Gagnier (Exeter)
Critical Theory: Violence and Reconciliation is a one-day interdisciplinary event designed to bring together postgraduate students working in the fields of English, Modern Languages, Politics, Film and Drama. The central theme of the conference addresses interpretations of violence and/or reconciliation. How should we interpret violence? What constitutes reconciliation and is it always desirable? Is critical theory distanced from violence or an act of violence itself?
Possible themes include but are not limited to:
• Violence and the ways in which it is represented (e.g. music, visual cultures, film, literature)
• The Politics of Violence
• Media representation
• Communications technology
• Violence and identity (e.g. race, class, gender and sexuality)
• Visibility politics
• Trauma Theory
• Postcolonialism
• Insurrection and Revolution
We are interested in work that is specific to individual theorists such as Jacqueline Rose, Hannah Arendt or Alain Badiou or based on theoretical schools of thought such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminisms or eco-criticism. Writers and texts need not be canonical and we actively encourage papers discussing writers, texts, theories and thinkers from around the world.
Whilst the majority of panels will follow the format of three 20-minute papers followed by questions, some of these panels will break with that traditional structure. For this second form of panel, participants will be asked to submit their papers in advance. These will be collated into the conference packs and distributed amongst attendees prior to the event. On the day, these participants are invited to deliver a short commentary on their paper and the floor will be opened for discussion. The aim of this format is to prepare participants in advance thereby fostering active, in-depth and focused debate.
Abstracts (350 words) are invited by 12th July 2010. Please email abstracts and enquiries to Graham Matthews (gjm201@ex.ac.uk), Lara Cox or Sam Goodman at critical.theory.online@gmail.com
Shows of London Meeting, ‘Re-reading the Languages of Perception’
The reading group’s summer meeting will be held on Monday June 28 at 4pm in the KCL English Department Seminar Room (S2.39). The theme of the discussion is ‘Re-reading the Languages of Perception’, involving debate on works about vision and sound by Jonathan Ree, Elaine Scarry and John Ruskin.
Scarry, Elaine, “Imagining Flowers,” Dreaming by the Book (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999), pp. 40-76.
Ruskin, John, “The Flower,” Selected Writings, ed. Dinah Birch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 251-263.
Rée, Jonathan, I See a Voice (London: HarperCollins, 1999), pp.1-40.
For more information contact louise.lee@kcl.ac.uk or visit http://showsoflondon.wordpress.com.
CFP: Republics of Letters: Literary Communities in Australia
Republics of Letters: Literary Communities in Australia
Australian-United States Intellectual Histories
A Symposium hosted by Australian Literature at the University of Sydney
January 13 – 14, 2011
Convenors: Dr Peter Kirkpatrick and Prof. Robert Dixon
“In what ways do writing and reading generate forms of community in Australia? What roles might literature and the literary have in the formation of both publics and counterpublics? This symposium explores a variety of collective relationships among writers, readers and texts, with an emphasis on processes of literary sociability that elide or exceed the “imagined community” of the nation.”
Limited funds are available for postgraduate travel.
For more information visit: http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/index.php?cf=32
Call for Papers: http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/overview.php?cf=32
Reclamation and representation: the boundaries of the literary archive
International Conference, University of Exeter, 2-3rd October 2010
Supported by the Centre for South West Writing
“This two day event explores issues of reclamation and representation within literary archive. The event seeks to foreground original archival research into literary legacies and the processes of authorial representation through research, exploring unique methodological challenges and questions that arise from archival investigation.”
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Helen Taylor (University of Exeter)
Dr Wim Van Mierlo (University of London)
Registration is now open. For more information visit:
http://sall.exeter.ac.uk/research/conferences/literary%20archive/
Dickens Universe – Applications for Inaugural Nineteenth-Century Seminar Aug 2010
Invitation to Apply for the Dickens Universe Nineteenth-Century Seminar, University of California, Santa Cruz
“The Dickens Project is a consortium of over 30 universities, whose faculty and graduate students attend the lectures, seminars, workshops, and social events called the Dickens Universe each year in the first week of August at UC-Santa Cruz. This year the Universe is offering a new faculty/graduate student seminar to welcome participants whose schools are not currently members.
The inaugural Nineteenth-Century Seminar will be a working group of scholars led by two faculty members affiliated with the Dickens Project. Any “independent” faculty member or advanced graduate student who plans to attend the August 1-7, 2010 Dickens Universe at the University of California-Santa Cruz is eligible to apply. Members of the seminar are invited to share a 5-7 page “position paper” on their current research projects to be circulated in advance. The seminar will facilitate energetic discussion, address research challenges posed by the projects, and encourage future collaborations among participants. Submitting a position paper in advance will enable a work-group of 15 participants and allow seminar members to seek research support from their home institutions. The Nineteenth-Century Seminar will meet from 1:30-3:00, Monday through Thursday, leaving time for participants to attend the lively schedule of lectures, classes, panels, and social events that comprise the “Universe.”
The seminar leaders are Professor Catherine Robson from UC Davis, author of Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentleman (Princeton UP, 2001) and Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem (Princeton UP, forthcoming), and Dr Ella Dzelzainis, Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Newcastle, who specializes in the interchange between literature, feminist history and economic history.
To apply, please submit a two-page CV and a 200-word description of the research project you will share, along with your Registration Form, to JoAnna Rottke at jrottke@ucsc.edu by June 15, 2010.”
For more information about the seminar and the 2010 Dickens Universe, see the Dickens Project website http://dickens.ucsc.edu/universe/universe2010.html
CFP: The Cowper and Newton Journal
The Cowper and Newton Journal, a new scholarly annual published by the Trustees of The Cowper and Newton Museum, Olney, UK, is seeking submissions for its first issue, to be published in Spring 2011.
The Journal accepts contributions on any topic related to William Cowper, John Newton and their circle but also embraces the wider milieu – literary, artistic, religious, historical, horticultural – of their contemporaries in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In keeping with its museum origins, the Journal’s scope also covers material culture: the study of relevant objects from the period and their wider significance.
For more information and submission details visit
www.cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/
CFP: Guarding Innocence
Guarding Innocence: Moral Protectionism in Nineteenth Century Britain and America
Conference at the University of Cambridge, 3-4 September 2010
Proposals due 30 June 2010
From the organiser, David Sandifer: ‘This conference will seek to explore 19th century concerns about the power of ‘negative’ influences upon individuals and society. It will attempt not only to document the attention paid to the perceived dangers of moral corruption, but also to describe how ‘innocence’ was conceptualized as a moral category, and to understand its cultural, philosophical, and religious underpinnings. The keynote address will be given by Dr. Rochelle Gurstein, author of The Repeal of Reticence: A History of America’s Cultural and Legal Struggles over Free Speech, Obscenity, Sexual Liberation, and Modern Art (Hill and Wang, 1996). Dr. Gurstein will be speaking on the ‘reticent sensibility’, and how its status was threatened from the new ‘agents of exposure’.’
More information can be found here (PDF): Guarding Innocence
Proposals for 20-minute papers, with a 250-word abstract, may be sent to David Sandifer at djs212@cam.ac.uk before 30 June 2010. Travel bursaries will be available for speakers, contingent upon funding.
Reweaving the Rainbow: Literature & Philosophy, 1850-1910
Conference at the University of Exeter, 10th & 11th of September 2010
Keynote speaker: Prof. Michael Wood (Princeton)
From the organiser, Dr Kate Hext: ‘Registration has now opened! I expect this to be a very friendly conference, bringing together academics from all levels, so do come along.’
For more information and registration details visit: http://sall.exeter.ac.uk/research/conferences/reweavingtherainbow/
