Essay Prize: NAVSA Gray Prize (5/20/2014)

Donald Gray Prize

NAVSA

Deadline: May 20, 2014

NAVSA's annual Donald Gray Prize for best essay published in the field of Victorian Studies is named after Donald J. Gray, Culbertson Professor Emeritus in the English Department of Indiana University. Professor Gray received his PhD at Ohio State University, where he completed his dissertation under the direction of Richard Altick, and began teaching at Indiana University in 1956. At Indiana, Professor Gray received the university's Distinguished Teaching Award, its Distinguished Service Award, and the President's Medal of Excellence; in 1997, he received the MLA award for professional service. He was a dissertation director of legendary responsiveness, acuity and stamina, having directed over 75 dissertations. Professor Gray is the editor of the Norton Pride and Prejudice and Alice in Wonderland; with George Tennyson he edited Victorian Poetry and Prose for Macmillan. He also served as editor of the journal College English and, beginning in 1957, as the Book Review Editor of Victorian Studies, helping the founding editors steer the journal through its early years. From 1990-2000 he served as principal editor of the journal. He retired in 1998. The Gray Prize honors his remarkable achievements as editor and graduate-student teacher.

NAVSA is now seeking nominations for the Donald Gray Prize for best essay published in the field of Victorian Studies. The prize carries with it an award of $500 and will be awarded to essays that appeared in print or online in journals from the previous calendar year. Essays may be on any topic related to the study of Victorian Britain. Note that the actual date of appearance trumps the date given on the issue itself since it's common for journals to lag behind official issue dates. (The prize is limited to journal essays; those published in essay collections are not eligible.) The winner will also receive complementary registration at the NAVSA conference at which his or her award will be announced. Anyone, regardless of NAVSA membership status, is free to nominate an essay that appeared in print between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. Nominations will also be solicited from the Advisory Board of NAVSA and the prize committee judges; self-nominated essays are equally welcome. Authors may be from any country and of any institutional standing.

To nominate an essay, please submit by Tuesday, 20 May 2014: (1) a brief cover sheet with complete address and email information for both the essay's nominator and its author, and (2) a digital copy of the essay (in .pdf, .doc or .docx) to the Executive Secretary of NAVSA, Deborah Denenholz Morse, at the following e-mail address: ddmors@wm.edu

The winning essay will be selected according to three criteria: 1) Potential significance for Victorian studies; 2) Quality and depth of scholarly research and interpretation; 3) Clarity and effectiveness of presentation. The judges will choose one essay for the award, with one honorary runner-up also selected, when appropriate, and will provide a short paragraph for use in announcing the award. If the judges are deadlocked, the decision is thrown to the NAVSA Executive Council.

Announcement: NAVSA 2014 Proposal Submissions (3/7/2014; 11/13-15/2014)

NAVSA 2014

November 13-15, 2014

London, Ontario, Canada

Deadline: March 7, 2014

The submission mechanism for proposals to NAVSA 2014 in London, Canada is finally ready.  Here is the link:

http://navsa.wpengine.com/submissions/conference-proposals/

In light of the delay in getting the form up and running, Chris Keep has decided to extend the deadline to March 7.  We apologize for the wait.  We have been working to create a mechanism that will save future organizers time and money, centralizing the process and making it possible to export this data directly into a database without any time-consuming and error-prone data entry by hand.  Not surprisingly, we have had to deal with some debugging as we work on this new mechanism.  As far as we know, no other organization provides such a centralized mechanism—at least, not without paying third-party commercial providers.  

You can find out more information about the 2014 conference here:

http://navsa2014.com/

Please note that, if you are submitting an entire panel, you will need to provide cvs and proposals for each of the people on your panel.  These need to be separate files and must all be in PDF format.  

Reminder: NAVSA 2014 “Victorian Classes and Classifications” (3/1/2014; 11/13-15/2014)

North American Victorian Studies Association Conference 2014

London, Ontario, Canada

November 13-15, 2014

Deadline: March 1, 2014

“Victorian Classes and Classifications”

Victorian Britain belonged to the classifying age. Imperial expansion and new techniques of observation and production confronted Britons with an expanding universe of natural and man-made phenomena.  In response, scientists, writers, artists, and educators sought to articulate some underlying sense of order through ever more complex systems of organization, arrangement, and tabulation. Natural philosophers vastly extended and revised the taxonomies of Linnaeus. Medical professionals developed new diagnostic tools and coined a broad range of new pathologies and diseases. Criminologists gathered biometric data that allowed them to constitute and apprehend criminal types. Literary critics debated the rise of new classes of literature, from the penny dreadful and sensation fiction to the naturalist novel. Librarians set out the protocols for indexing the classes and sub-classes of literature that resulted from the vast outpouring of printed matter. Teachers began to organize their classrooms into distinct groupings of students by age and ability. But with these efforts came, too, a new concern and fascination for that which exceeded classification, the anomalous, the mutation, the hybrid, the monstrous, and class struggle emerged as a theory of history and as a basis for political organization. 

The organizers of the North American Victorian Studies Association’s 2014 conference welcome papers studying any aspect of the Victorians’ self-organization, organization of culture, and organization of the natural world.

Conference threads might include: 

• Varieties, species, genera, and types of living organism and inanimate object
• Literary genres, parts, classifications, and forms of publication
• Social class and its material embodiment in modes of travel, commodity culture, fashion, and the built environment
• Pedagogy and the classroom
• The sciences and pseudo-sciences of human classification: racial science, criminology, and sexology.
• Character types and body types
• Breeding, rank, and class
• Museums, exhibitions, shops, libraries, schools, and other sorting institutions
• Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and the organization of knowledge
• Varieties of religious experience and affiliation
• Cultural forms that exceed classification: the gothic, the grotesque, the monstrous, the absurd, the nonsensical.

Proposals for individual papers or panels should be submitted electronically by March 1, 2014. Proposals for individual papers should be no more than 500 words; panel proposals should include 500-word abstracts for each paper and a 250-word panel description. Applicants should submit a one-page cv.

For further information on the conference or to submit a proposal for a paper or a panel, please visit www.navsa2014.com. 

Reminder: NAVSA 2014 Best Book of the Year Prize (1/31/2014)

NAVSA 2014 Best Book of the Year Prize

Deadline: January 31, 2014

The North American Victorian Studies Association is currently accepting submissions for our new annual prize for the best book of the year in Victorian studies. In addition to receiving complementary conference registration and up to $1000 for travel, the winner of the NAVSA Best Book of the Year will be honored with a special round table devoted to the book at the annual NAVSA conference. Note that the prize is contingent on the author’s attendance at the next NAVSA conference for the entire range of conference dates. Authors must appear in person at the book-prize roundtable or they are not eligible for the award. Next year’s conference will occur in London, Ontario on November 13 -16.  Books may be on any topic related to the study of Victorian Britain and/or its empire and must carry a 2013 copyright date.

The deadline for nominations is January 31, 2014. (That’s a receipt deadline, not a postmark deadline.) Please see the NAVSA website for more details: 

http://www.navsa.org/Prizes/BookPrize.shtml

Feel free to contact Melissa Gregory if you have questions: melissa.gregory@utoledo.edu

Prize: NAVSA 2014 Best Book of the Year Prize (1/31/2014)

NAVSA 2014 Best Book of the Year Prize

Deadline: January 31, 2014

The North American Victorian Studies Association is currently accepting submissions for our new annual prize for the best book of the year in Victorian studies. In addition to receiving complementary conference registration and up to $1000 for travel, the winner of the NAVSA Best Book of the Year will be honored with a special round table devoted to the book at the annual NAVSA conference. Note that the prize is contingent on the author’s attendance at the next NAVSA conference for the entire range of conference dates. Authors must appear in person at the book-prize roundtable or they are not eligible for the award. Next year’s conference will occur in London, Ontario on November 13 -16.  Books may be on any topic related to the study of Victorian Britain and/or its empire and must carry a 2013 copyright date.

The deadline for nominations is January 31, 2014. (That’s a receipt deadline, not a postmark deadline.) Please see the NAVSA website for more details: 

http://www.navsa.org/Prizes/BookPrize.shtml

Feel free to contact Melissa Gregory if you have questions: melissa.gregory@utoledo.edu

CFP: NAVSA 2014 “Victorian Classes and Classifications” (3/1/2014; 11/13-15/2014)

North American Victorian Studies Association Conference 2014

London, Ontario, Canada

November 13-15, 2014

Deadline: March 1, 2014 

“Victorian Classes and Classifications”

Victorian Britain belonged to the classifying age. Imperial expansion and new techniques of observation and production confronted Britons with an expanding universe of natural and man-made phenomena.  In response, scientists, writers, artists, and educators sought to articulate some underlying sense of order through ever more complex systems of organization, arrangement, and tabulation. Natural philosophers vastly extended and revised the taxonomies of Linnaeus. Medical professionals developed new diagnostic tools and coined a broad range of new pathologies and diseases. Criminologists gathered biometric data that allowed them to constitute and apprehend criminal types. Literary critics debated the rise of new classes of literature, from the penny dreadful and sensation fiction to the naturalist novel. Librarians set out the protocols for indexing the classes and sub-classes of literature that resulted from the vast outpouring of printed matter. Teachers began to organize their classrooms into distinct groupings of students by age and ability. But with these efforts came, too, a new concern and fascination for that which exceeded classification, the anomalous, the mutation, the hybrid, the monstrous, and class struggle emerged as a theory of history and as a basis for political organization. 

Conference threads might include: 

• Varieties, species, genera, and types of living organism and inanimate object
• Literary genres, parts, classifications, and forms of publication
• Social class and its material embodiment in modes of travel, commodity culture, fashion, and the built environment
• Pedagogy and the classroom
• The sciences and pseudo-sciences of human classification: racial science, criminology, and sexology.
• Character types and body types
• Breeding, rank, and class
• Museums, exhibitions, shops, libraries, schools, and other sorting institutions
• Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and the organization of knowledge
• Varieties of religious experience and affiliation
• Cultural forms that exceed classification: the gothic, the grotesque, the monstrous, the absurd, the nonsensical.

The organizers of the North American Victorian Studies Association’s 2014 conference welcome papers studying any aspect of the Victorians’ self-organization, organization of culture, and organization of the natural world. Proposals for individual papers or panels should be submitted electronically by March 1, 2014. Proposals for individual papers should be no more than 500 words; panel proposals should include 500-word abstracts for each paper and a 250-word panel description. Applicants should submit a one-page cv. For further information on the conference or to submit a proposal for a paper or a panel, please visit www.navsa2014.com.

CFP: NAVSA 2014! "Victorian Classes and Classifications" (11/13-15/2014)

Victorian Classes and Classifications

North American Victorian Studies Association Conference 2014
London, Ontario, Canada
November 13-15, 2014

Victorian Britain belonged to the classifying age. Imperial expansion and new techniques of observation and production confronted Britons with an expanding universe of natural and man-made phenomena.  In response, scientists, writers, artists, and educators sought to articulate some underlying sense of order through ever more complex systems of organization, arrangement, and tabulation. Natural philosophers vastly extended and revised the taxonomies of Linnaeus. Medical professionals developed new diagnostic tools and coined a broad range of new pathologies and diseases. Criminologists gathered biometric data that allowed them to constitute and apprehend criminal types. Literary critics debated the rise of new classes of literature, from the penny dreadful and sensation fiction to the naturalist novel. Librarians set out the protocols for indexing the classes and sub-classes of literature that resulted from the vast outpouring of printed matter. Teachers began to organize their classrooms into distinct groupings of students by age and ability. But with these efforts came, too, a new concern and fascination for that which exceeded classification, the anomalous, the mutation, the hybrid, the monstrous, and class struggle emerged as a theory of history and as a basis for political organization.

The organizers of the North American Victorian Studies Association’s 2014 conference welcome papers studying any aspect of the Victorians’ self-organization, organization of culture, and organization of the natural world. Proposals for individual papers or panels should be submitted electronically by March 1, 2014. Proposals for individual papers should be no more than 500 words; panel proposals should include 500-word abstracts for each paper and a 250-word panel description. Applicants should submit a one-page CV.

Conference threads might include:

• Varieties, species, genera, and types of living organism and inanimate object
• Literary genres, parts, classifications, and forms of publication
• Social class and its material embodiment in modes of travel, commodity culture, fashion, and the built environment
• Pedagogy and the classroom
• The sciences and pseudo-sciences of human classification: racial science, criminology, and sexology.
• Character types and body types
• Breeding, rank, and class
• Museums, exhibitions, shops, libraries, schools, and other sorting institutions
• Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and the organization of knowledge
• Cultural forms that exceed classification: the gothic, the grotesque, the monstrous, the absurd, the nonsensical.

Details on how to submit a proposal are forthcoming.
Check back here soon!

Reminder: Joint NAVSA/ACCUTE Panel 2014 "Neo-Victorian Uses and Abuses of History" (11/15/2013; 5/24-27/2014)

Joint NAVSA/ACCUTE Panel 2014
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

May 24 – 27, 2014

Deadline: November 15, 2013

"Neo-Victorian Uses and Abuses of History"
In the relatively new field of Neo-Victorian studies the status of history is the focus of much debate. Is the recourse to the Victorian period necessarily nostalgic? Can the Victorian period be used to critique racism, violence and homophobia? And what of imaginative reconstructions of the Victorian period in genres such as Steampunk: are novels that reconfigure the Victorian period with contemporary technology and issues “historical” or do they call into question totalizing historical narratives?

Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:

• History, collective memory and nostalgia
• The commodification of the Victorian period
• Retro-futurism and the status of history
• Refiguring colonialism in Neo-Victorian texts
• Ecohistory and Neo-Victorianism
• Play and history in Neo-Victorian texts
• The Victorian period as utopia/dystopia
• Race, history and Neo-Victorianism
• Subverting the “Victorian” in Neo-Victorianism

Send 250 word proposals or completed papers for 15-20-minute talks to Martin Danahay .   Deadline: November 15, 2013

CFP: Joint NAVSA/ACCUTE Panel 2014 "Neo-Victorian Uses and Abuses of History" (11/15/2013; 5/24-27/2014)

Joint NAVSA/ACCUTE Panel 2014
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

May 24 – 27, 2014

Deadline: November 15, 2013

"Neo-Victorian Uses and Abuses of History"
In the relatively new field of Neo-Victorian studies the status of history is the focus of much debate. Is the recourse to the Victorian period necessarily nostalgic? Can the Victorian period be used to critique racism, violence and homophobia? And what of imaginative reconstructions of the Victorian period in genres such as Steampunk: are novels that reconfigure the Victorian period with contemporary technology and issues “historical” or do they call into question totalizing historical narratives?

Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:

• History, collective memory and nostalgia
• The commodification of the Victorian period
• Retro-futurism and the status of history
• Refiguring colonialism in Neo-Victorian texts
• Ecohistory and Neo-Victorianism
• Play and history in Neo-Victorian texts
• The Victorian period as utopia/dystopia
• Race, history and Neo-Victorianism
• Subverting the “Victorian” in Neo-Victorianism

Send 250 word proposals or completed papers for 15-20-minute talks to Martin Danahay .   Deadline: November 15, 2013

CFP: Joint NAVSA/ACCUTE Panel 2014 “Victorian Uses and Abuses of History” (11/15/2013; 5/24-27/2014)

Joint NAVSA/ACCUTE Panel 2014
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

May 24 – 27, 2014

Deadline: November 15, 2013

“Victorian Uses and Abuses of History”
What were the uses of history in the Victorian period? The period saw the publication of numerous historical novels following the success of Sir Walter Scott’s “Waverley.” Many novelists, including Charles Dickens, Charles Reade, William Makepiece Thackery, Charles Kingsley, George Eliot and Robert Louis Stevenson all addressed history in their novels. The French Revolution figured largely as a historical warning against revolution in the minds of many Victorian sages, while the Fall of Rome could be used to warn against overweening pride in the Empire. History could figure as nightmare in Gothic novels. Inspired by Ruskin and Morris, many looked back to the Medieval period as a source of values and an alternative to industrialized Britain. This call for papers invites proposals for individual or collaborative papers on the theme of "Victorian Uses and Abuses of History.”  

Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to:

• The Victorian Historical Novel
• Victorian Medievalism
• “The Renaissance" according to Victorians
• Victorian Historians and Historiography
• Historical Time vs. Geological Time
• Past and Present Contrasts
• "Neo" Architecture and Literature of the Victorian Period
• Historical Self-Consciousness
• History and Aesthetics
• Historical Utopias and Dystopias

Send 250 word proposals or completed papers for 15-20-minute talks to Martin Danahay .   Deadline: November 15, 2013

Final Reminder: NAVSA Graduate-student Travel Grant (7/15/2013)

FINAL reminder about the upcoming deadline for the NAVSA graduate-student travel grant (deadline July 15).

GRADUATE-STUDENT TRAVEL GRANT

Applicants will find all the information they need at the following URL: http://www.navsa.org/TravelGrantPrize

Last Call: NAVSA Donald Gray Prize (5/20/2013)

NAVSA is now seeking nominations for the Donald Gray Prize for best essay published in the field of Victorian Studies. The prize carries with it an award of $500 and will be awarded to essays that appeared in print or online in journals from the previous calendar year. Essays may be on any topic related to the study of Victorian Britain. Note that the actual date of appearance trumps the date given on the issue itself since it's common for journals to lag behind official issue dates. (The prize is limited to journal essays; those published in essay collections are not eligible.) The winner will also receive complementary registration at the NAVSA conference at which his or her award will be announced. Anyone, regardless of NAVSA membership status, is free to nominate an essay that appeared in print between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2012. Nominations will also be solicited from the Advisory Board of NAVSA and the prize committee judges; self-nominated essays are equally welcome. Authors may be from any country and of any institutional standing.

To nominate an essay, please submit by Monday, 20 May 2013: (1) a brief cover sheet with complete address and email information for both the essay's nominator and its author, and (2) a digital copy of the essay (in .rtf, .doc, .docx, or .pdf) to the Executive Secretary of NAVSA, Deborah Denenholz Morse, at the following e-mail address: ddmors@wm.edu

You can find more information here: http://www.navsa.org/Prizes/GrayPrize.shtml

Registration Open: NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA in Venice, Italy (6/3-6/2013)

If you are interested in joining the NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA conference in Venice, Italy (June 3-6, 2013), it's not too late to get involved. There are still a few openings for panel chairs, for example, or you could just come for the conversations.  Registration is now live.  You can find out more here:

http://glocalvictorians.wordpress.com/about-us/

Registration goes up by 50 euros starting April 15.

Over 300 Victorianists will be descending on Venice for the event.  

Plenary speakers and headliners include: Murray Baumgarten, Alison Booth, James Buzard, Nicholas Daly, Kate Flint, Regenia Gagnier, Pamela Gilbert, Eileen Gillooly, Pat Hardy, Robert Hewison, Barbara Leckie, Ruth Livesey, Jock Macleod, Franco Marucci, Rohan McWilliam, Andrew Miller, Lynda Nead, Cornelia Pearsall, Alan Rauch, Dianne Sadoff, Emma Sdegno, Sally Shuttleworth, William St. Clair, Marjorie Stone, Beverly Taylor, Paul Tucker, Lydia Wevers, Sue Zemka, and Rosella Mamoli Zorzi. 

New NAVSA Blog: Member Publications

NAVSA is pleased to announce the launch of its new Member Publications blog at http://navsapub.blogspot.com/. If you are a NAVSA member and you have a book or collection published in 2012 or one that is forthcoming, please email Dino Franco Felluga (felluga@purdue.edu) with the details and an accompanying image.  As with NAVSA’s CFP blog, Of Victorian Interest, anyone can subscribe to the Member Publications blog, either via RSS feed or email.

In the meantime, please check out the 2012 and 2013 titles that have already been posted: http://navsapub.blogspot.com/

To join NAVSA, please visit: http://www.navsa.org

Last Call: NAVSA 2013 "Evidence" (3/1/2013; 10/23-27/2013)

CALL FOR PAPERS—EVIDENCE

NAVSA 2013, Pasadena, CA, Oct 23-27

The North American Victorian Studies Association Conference for 2013, in Pasadena, California, October 23rd-27th, invites papers on the theme of evidence. Evidence is central to all our work: we use texts, images, objects, the built environment to support our arguments. We also interpret, select, arrange, and juxtapose such evidentiary material. The Victorians strenuously looked for evidence to support their beliefs, social policies, and colonial projects. Our program will include optional workshops at the Getty Research Institute and material culture sessions at the Huntington. Conference attendees will be able to enter the Huntington and its wonderful gardens free of charge.

Proposals for individual papers or panels should be submitted electronically by March 1, 2013. Proposals for individual papers should be no more than 500 words; panel proposals should include 500-word abstracts for each paper and a 250-word panel description. Applicants should submit a one-page cv. All documents should be submitted in .pdf format through the online form linked to the conference website: <http://dornsife.usc.edu/conferences/navsa/>

Conference threads might include: 

• What is evidence? How do different disciplines identify and use evidence? How does the use of evidence draw boundaries and bridges between disciplines? How does interdisciplinary work deal with evidence?
• How has the use of evidence changed (new evidence and new ways to use old evidence)?
• Evidence and the humanities: interpretation, analysis, scientific and historical method, supporting arguments
• Digitization and the changing nature of the archive, museum and library
• Teaching and evidence: sources, assessment, pedagogies
• Lost evidence: wars and other research inconveniences
• Imagined evidence and historical fictions
• Science: method, demonstration, essentialism/Social Darwinism
• Religion: belief, faith and intuition
• Personal evidence: autobiographies, letters and diaries
• Visual evidence: photography, painting, theater, film and other displays
• The building, the city and the village: architecture, urban planning and historic preservation
• Archaeology, fossils, bone, tracks, spoor
• The body as evidence
• Material culture: clothes, pottery, and other everyday objects
• Crime and Justice: police, detectives, witnesses and the press
• Politics: parliamentary inquiries, select committees
• Ghosts and revenants: evidence of the supernatural and of the afterlife
• The press: scandal and public opinion
• Evidence and the colonial project

Reminder: NAVSA Best Book of the Year, call for submissions (1/31/2013)

The North American Victorian Studies Association is pleased to announce a new annual prize for the best book of the year in Victorian studies. In addition to receiving complementary registration and up to $1000 for travel, the winner of the NAVSA Best Book of the Year will be honored with a special round table devoted to the book at the annual NAVSA conference. Books may be on any topic related to the study of Victorian Britain and/or its empire. To nominate a book that was published in the 2012 calendar year, the deadline is 31 January 2013 (that’s a receipt deadline, not a postmark deadline). Please see the NAVSA website for details: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/navsa/Prizes/BookPrize.cfm

Feel free to contact Melissa Gregory if you have questions: melissa.gregory@utoledo.edu

CFP: At the edge of perception: Victorian conceptions of the unseen universe (11/1/2012; 6/1-4/2013)

Joint Session CFP for ACCUTE/NAVSA:

At the edge of perception: Victorian conceptions of the unseen universe 

ACCUTE 2013

Victoria, British Columbia

June 1-4, 2013

We invite papers that engage with the congress theme “@ the edge,” especially as related to the Victorian conceptions of the unseen. We suggest papers related (but not limited to) the following themes: 

• Victorians and ghosts, seers, spirits, the occult 
• Victorians and ether, magnetism, energy 
• Victorians and the edge of the “real,” 
• Victorians and the limits of human perception 
• Victorians and faith, agnosticism, atheism, unbelief 
• Victorians and space 
• Victorians and mapping/seeking the unknown 

Please send proposals of 300-500 words, along with 100-word abstracts and 50-word bios, to Lisa Surridge, lsurridg@uvic.ca. Materials must be received by November 1. 

Reminder: Venice Professionalization Workshop (10/31/2012; 5/27-31, 6/3, 6/7/2013)

This workshop is intended for graduate students and recently minted PhDs and will address such issues as grant-writing; postdoctoral fellowships; the writing of proposals; job letters and the market; the interview process and job talks; teaching portfolios; how to turn a seminar paper into a published article; the digital humanities, pros and cons; the differences among Canadian, American, British, and also Australian markets; and negotiating contracts. The workshop will occur on San Servolo every morning, May 27-31, June 3, and June 7.  A number of scholars have expressed their willingness to participate, provided they can arrange their schedule and funding, including Andrew Miller, Carolyn Williams, Alison Byerley, Barbara Leckie, Pamela Gilbert, and Kate Flint.  There will not be a firm list of visitors until the new year.

The workshop will cost US$800.  That will include the program fee, rental of the classroom, and lodging for the period May 25 to June 2, plus an additional night on June 7, so 10 extra nights in Venice.  This means that participants would have 10 extra nights in Venice for less than they could arrange any other way, thanks to the help of Venice Int'l U, so the workshop is a bonus of sorts (two and a half hours every morning, leaving the afternoons to visit Venice each day).  The only cheaper lodging option is the Venice hostel but it only allows you to stay for a maximum of 3 nights.  The next cheapest is Domus Ciliota at €70/night (the price, however, goes up in June). It's already sold out for those dates (if it were available, it would be over $1000 for 10 nights, with the June rate increase). The housing will be in in dorm rooms on San Servolo from May 25 to June 7, not counting the nights of the NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA Supernumerary Conference itself; the NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA Supernumerary Conference runs from June 3-6.

You can find more information about the NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA Supernumerary Conference, “The Global and the Local,” here: http://glocalvictorians.wordpress.com/

You can find information about the island here: http://www.sanservolo.provincia.venezia.it

In most cases, there will be three students together in one room, with a bathroom in the unit.  San Servolo is just a 10-minute vaporetto ride away from Piazza San Marco, the tourist heart of Venice.  

Note that the conference will run the first-come-first-served seminar format NAVSA ran successfully at Vanderbilt last year and again this year in Wisconsin: http://english.wisc.edu/navsa/?page_id=137

This means that, even if an individual does not get accepted in response to the general call, s/he will have the ability to join the conference and have his/her paper listed in the conference program.  Hopefully, that will be enough to secure funding from home institutions.

The deadline to apply for the professionalization workshop that will occur the week before the conference is Oct. 31. If you are interested in this workshop, please contact Dino Franco Felluga at: felluga@purdue.edu

Last Call: NAVSA/BAVS/AVSA Supernumerary Conference “The Global and the Local” (10/4/2012; 6/3-6/2013)

The conference is a supernumerary conference for NAVSA, BAVS, and AVSA.  The dates will be June 3-6, 2013 and the deadline for proposals is October 4, just a few days after the NAVSA '12 Wisconsin conference.  NAVSA's regular conference will occur in 2013 at the Huntington, the Getty, and Pasadena from October 23-27.  You can find more information about the Venice conference at the following web site: http://glocalvictorians.wordpress.com/

The deadline, once again, is October 4.  

The conference will occur on the beautiful island of San Servolo, just a 10-minute vaporetto ride from Piazza San Marco, the tourist heart of Venice.  There will be the option to stay on the island of San Servolo, in dorm room housing (with bathroom in room) for the fee of €53.33 (US$69) per night per person (an unbeatable rate for Venice!).  The rooms are spare but clean and a number of the rooms will be doubles, triples, and quadruples, so you would likely be sharing a room in this scenario.  

Lynda Nead (Birkbeck, UK) and Lydia Wevers (Victorian U, Wellington, New Zeland) have been confirmed as plenary speakers.  An opening State of the Field panel will have position papers by Regenia Gagnier (U Exeter, UK), Jock Macleod (Griffith U, Australia), and Kate Flint (USC, USA).  The conference will include a special night time tour of Basilica San Marco and a series of material culture seminars spread around the city. 

CFP: NAVSA 2013 Evidence (3/1/2013; 10/23-27/2013)

The North American Victorian Studies Association Conference for 2013, in Pasadena, California, October 23rd-27th, invites papers on the theme of evidence.  Evidence is central to all our work: we use texts, images, objects, the built environment to support our arguments. We also interpret, select, arrange, and juxtapose such evidentiary material.  The Victorians strenuously looked for evidence to support their assumptions, beliefs, and investigation. Our program will include optional workshops at the Getty Research Institute and material culture sessions at the Huntington. Conference attendees will be able to enter the Huntington and its wonderful gardens free of charge.

Proposals for individual papers or panels should be submitted electronically by March 1, 2013. Proposals for individual papers should be no more than 500 words; panel proposals should include 500-word abstracts for each paper and a 250-word panel description. Applicants should submit a one-page cv. 

Conference threads might include:

• What is evidence? How do different disciplines identify and use evidence? How does the use of evidence draw boundaries and bridges between disciplines? How does interdisciplinary work deal with evidence?
• How has the use of evidence changed (new evidence and new ways to use old evidence)?
• Evidence and the humanities: interpretation, analysis, scientific and historical method, supporting arguments
• Digitization and the changing nature of the archive, museum and library
• Teaching and evidence: sources, assessment, pedagogies
• Lost evidence: wars and other research inconveniences
• Imagined evidence and historical fictions
• Science: method, demonstration, essentialism/Social Darwinism
• Religion: belief, faith and intuition
• Personal evidence: autobiographies, letters and diaries
• Visual evidence: photography, painting, theater, film and other displays
• The building, the city and the village: architecture, urban planning and historic preservation
• Archaelogy, fossils, bone, tracks, spoor
• The body as evidence
• Material culture: clothes, pottery, and other everyday objects
• Crime and Justice: police, detectives, witnesses and the press
• Politics: parliamentary inquiries, select committees
• Ghosts and revenants: evidence of the supernatural and of the afterlife
• The press: scandal and public opinion
• Evidence and the colonial project

Details: http://dornsife.usc.edu/conferences/navsa/call-for-papers