Last Call: VISAWUS 2013 "Victorian Modernities" (3/15/2013; 11/14-16/2013)

Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies of the Western United States announces the theme of its 2013 conference:

Victorian Modernities
Nov. 14-16, 2013

Courtyard by Marriott, Portland City Center

Portland, Oregon

“Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly.” – Oscar Wilde

VISAWUS 2013 explores the Victorians’ enthusiasm and apprehension regarding modern progress and innovation.We encourage papers across all disciplines, including (but not restricted to) art history, literature, gender, history of science, history, material culture, political science, performance, life writings, journalism, photography, popular culture, and economics.

Keynote Speaker: Joseph Bristow (English, UCLA), author and editor of numerous works on Victorian and modern literature and theories and histories of sexuality, including Effeminate England: Homoerotic Writing after 1885 (1995), Sexuality (1997), The Fin-de-Siècle Poem: English Literary Culture and the 1890s (2005), and Oscar Wilde and Modern Culture: The Making of a Legend (2009), is currently working on a project on “The Sex of Victorian Poetry” and editing the Journal of Victorian Culture and the Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture series.

Papers are solicited for topics such as:

• Urbanization, urbanity, and the flux of modern life
• New nationalisms
• Modern understandings of the global and the cosmopolitan
• Class mobilities and new professions
• Progressive Victorian social reform movements
• New Victorian types: New Women, dandies, Decadents, swells
• Anticipations of modernist formal styles
• New media: audio and visual technologies
• Advances in Victorian drama
• New sciences and pseudo-sciences
• Modern illnesses and modern medicine
• The novel and novelty
• Commodity culture and consumerism
• Modern understandings of sexuality and desire
• Resistances to modernity: nostalgia, pastiche
• New religions
• The apex of empire
• Modern warfare
• Neo-Victorianism and steampunk aesthetics

To submit: By March 15, 2013, email 300-word abstracts and a 1-page CV (name on BOTH) to visawus2013@gmail.com.

Please note: Graduate student papers are eligible for the William H. Scheuerle Graduate Student Paper Award ($300.00).

The most up-to-date information about the 2013 Conference can be found on our Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Victorian-Interdisciplinary-Studies-Association-of-the-Western-US/148139335285338?ref=stream.

2013 VISAWUS Panel Proposal (3/12/2013; 11/14-16/2013)

Panel Proposal 

2013 VISAWUS conference: Victorian Modernities
Courtyard by Marriott, Portland City Center, Portland, Oregon USA

November 14-16, 2013

http://visawus.org/ 

Among the scientific discoveries and emerging new disciplines that contributed to a palpable sense of Victorian modernity, some of the most intriguing involved new understandings of the physical basis of mind as discoveries were made about the structure and operation of the nervous system and the brain. This proposed panel seeks papers that investigate how the emergence of new understandings and interpretations of the mind/body relationship manifested in Victorian fiction. Those interested should email Genie Babb (gbabb001@plattsburgh.edu) and Judy DeTar (jsdetar@sbcglobal.net) by March 12.

Deadline Extended: VISAWUS 2012 Conference on Victorian Transnationalism (3/15/2012; 10/11-13/2012)

VISAWUS 2012 Conference

Victorian Transnationalism: The Atlantic Legacy in the Long 19th Century

The Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States (VISAWUS) announces its 17th annual conference to be held Oct. 11-13,  2012, during the height of the fall foliage season, on the campus of SUNY Plattsburgh in Plattsburgh, NY, which is situated on beautiful Lake Champlain (across from Burlington, VT), and an hour south of Montreal.

Our Keynote Speaker will be Amanda Claybaugh, Professor of English at Harvard University, author of The Novel of Purpose: Literature and Social Reform in the Anglo-American World (Cornell, 2007).

The focus of this year's conference is Victorian Transnationalism, with particular emphasis on the Atlantic legacy in the long 19th century.  As the site of a decisive American victory in the War of 1812, Plattsburgh is a testament to the fraught history of the “special relationships” between Britain and her neighbors across the pond. The town is home to an annual re-enactment of the Battle of Plattsburgh as well as historical sites relevant for scholars of the nineteenth century. We encourage papers across all disciplines exploring various aspects of the relations among and between the UK, Canada, the US, and other nations and regions across the Americas.

To submit: By March 15, 2012, email 300-word abstracts and a 1-page CV (name on BOTH) to: Genie Babb at gbabb001@plattsburgh.edu.

Please note: Graduate student papers are eligible for the William H. Scheuerle Graduate Student Paper Award ($300.00).

For more information, please see http://visawus.org/conferences.html

Reminder: VISAWUS 2012 Victorian Transnationalism: The Atlantic Legacy in the Long 19th Century (3/5/2012; 10/11-13/2012)

The Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States (VISAWUS) announces its 17th annual conference to be held Oct. 11-13, 2012, during the height of the fall foliage season, on the campus of SUNY Plattsburgh in Plattsburgh, NY, which is situated on beautiful Lake Champlain (across from Burlington, VT), and an hour south of Montreal.

Our Keynote Speaker will be Amanda Claybaugh, Professor of English at Harvard University, author of The Novel of Purpose: Literature and Social Reform in the Anglo-American World (Cornell, 2007).

The focus of this year's conference is Victorian Transnationalism, with particular emphasis on the Atlantic legacy in the long 19th century.  As the site of a decisive American victory in the War of 1812, Plattsburgh is a testament to the fraught history of the “special relationships” between Britain and her neighbors across the pond. The town is home to an annual re-enactment of the Battle of Plattsburgh as well as historical sites relevant for scholars of the nineteenth century. We encourage papers across all disciplines exploring various aspects of the relations among and between the UK, Canada, the US, and other nations and regions across the Americas. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Intertextuality across national boundaries
• Transnational influences in art
• Concert tours and musical influences
• Theatrical trends and tours
• Transnational friendships, famous and infamous
• Periodical press and public relations
• Sports and amusements, competitions and crazes
• Fashion and fads
• Celebrity authors and book tours
• Literary and other piracies
• Transnational science—synergies and squabbles
• Expeditions and exploration
• Migration of religious and spiritual movements
• The Imperial project in Britain and the Americas
• Legacies of war (Revolutionary, Napoleonic, War of 1812)
• Transnational relations during the American Civil War
• Race, racism, and slavery
• Transatlantic social reform movements and actors
• International affiliations and antipathies
• Transportation, tourism, and travel
• Expatriots: immigration and emigration
• Communication technologies (telegraph, e.g.)
• Transatlantic commerce and commodities
• Nautical technologies, marine life, aquaria
• Fishing and whaling
• Indigenous peoples, real and imagined
• Wilderness and civilization
• National symbols, stereotypes, and slurs
• National identities and ideals
• Clashing national manners and customs
• Transnational gender-role differences
• Ways of speaking: accents in English
• National tastes in food and drink
• Cosmopolitanism and provincialism
• Definitions of class difference and labor issues
• Contagion and containment, infectious diseases and epidemiology
• Contact zones, ethnographies, and autoethnographies

By March 5, 2012, email 300-word abstracts and a 1-page CV (name on BOTH) to Genie Babb at gbabb001@plattsburgh.edu. For further information on the conference, please contact Genie Babb. We are currently having problems with our website, but I hope in a week or so those will be resolved at which time, please visit VISAWUS.org.

Conference Hotel: Best Western Inn at Smithfield. To make reservations please call the hotel directly at 518-561-7750, dial extension 2 to reach the front desk and ask for the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association to receive the group rate. There is a cut-off date of 09/10/2012; rooms will need to be booked on or by this date to receive the group rate. (Group rates available 10/10 through 10/13/2012.)

VISAWUS: http://visawus.org/

CFP: VISAWUS 2012 - Victorian Transnationalism: The Atlantic Legacy in the Long 19th Century (3/5/2012; 10/11-13/2012)

VISAWUS 2012 Conference “Victorian Transnationalism: The Atlantic Legacy in the Long 19th Century”

The Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States (VISAWUS) announces its 17th annual conference to be held Oct. 11-13,  2012, during the height of the fall foliage season, on the campus of SUNY Plattsburgh in Plattsburgh, NY, which is situated on beautiful Lake Champlain (across from Burlington, VT), and an hour south of Montreal.

The focus of this year's conference is Victorian Transnationalism, with particular emphasis on the Atlantic legacy in the long 19th century.  As the site of a decisive American victory in the War of 1812, Plattsburgh is a testament to the fraught history of the “special relationships” between Britain and her neighbors across the pond. The town is home to an annual re-enactment of the Battle of Plattsburgh as well as historical sites relevant for scholars of the nineteenth century. We encourage papers across all disciplines exploring various aspects of the relations among and between the UK, Canada, the US, and other nations and regions across the Americas. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Intertextuality across national boundaries
• Transnational influences in art
• Concert tours and musical influences
• Theatrical trends and tours
• Transnational friendships, famous and infamous
• Periodical press and public relations
• Sports and amusements, competitions and crazes
• Fashion and fads 
• Celebrity authors and book tours
• Literary and other piracies
• Transnational science—synergies and squabbles
• Expeditions and exploration
• Migration of religious and spiritual movements
• The Imperial project in Britain and the Americas
• Legacies of war (Revolutionary, Napoleonic, War of 1812)
• Transnational relations during the American Civil War
• Race, racism, and slavery
• Transatlantic social reform movements and actors
• International affiliations and antipathies
• Transportation, tourism, and travel
• Expatriots: immigration and emigration
• Communication technologies (telegraph, e.g.)
• Transatlantic commerce and commodities
• Nautical technologies, marine life, aquaria
• Fishing and whaling
• Indigenous peoples, real and imagined
• Wilderness and civilization
• National symbols, stereotypes, and slurs
• National identities and ideals
• Clashing national manners and customs
• Transnational gender-role differences
• Ways of speaking: accents in English
• National tastes in food and drink
• Cosmopolitanism and provincialism
• Definitions of class difference and labor issues
• Contagion and containment, infectious diseases and epidemiology
• Contact zones, ethnographies, and autoethnographies

By March 5, 2012, email 300-word abstracts and a 1-page CV (name on BOTH) to Genie Babb at gbabb001@plattsburgh.edu. For further information on the conference, visit VISAWUS.org.

Conference Hotel: Best Western Inn at Smithfield. To make reservations please call the hotel directly at 518-561-7750, dial extension 2 to reach the front desk and ask for the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association to receive the group rate. There is a cut off date of 09/10/2012; rooms will need to be booked on or by this date to receive the group rate. (Group rates available 10/10 through 10/13/2012.)

Reminder: 16th Annual VISAWUS Conference CFP: "The Vulgar and the Proper: Victorian Manners and Mores" (3/15/2011, 10/13-15/2011)

CFP: 16th ANNUAL CONFERENCE of the VICTORIAN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES (VISAWUS)
 
"The Vulgar and the Proper: Victorian Manners and Mores"
 
October 13-15, 2011 Houston, Tx
 
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Helena Michie, English, Rice University, author, The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies; Sororophobia: Differences among Women in Literature and Culture; Victorian Honeymoons: Journeys to the Conjugal; co-author, Confinements: Fertility and Infertility in Contemporary Culture, and coeditor,19th-Century Geographies: The Transformation of Space from the Victorian Age to the American Century.
 
PLENARY SPEAKER: Lynn Voskuil, English, University of Houston, author, Acting Naturally: Victorian Theatricality and Authenticity, and essays in Victorian Studies, Feminist Studies, and ELH. Her current project is entitled "Horticulture and Imperialism: The Garden Spaces of the British Empire."

The 16th annual conference focuses on Victorian obsessions with vulgarity and propriety. We invite proposals on manners and mores in politics, culture, society, religion, art, science, economics, rural life, and other Victorian matters of decorum and propriety and what Victorians deemed vulgar, crude or crass. We encourage papers across all disciplines, including (but not restricted to) art history, literature, gender, history of science, history, material culture, political science, performance, life writings, journalism, photography, popular culture, and economics. 

• Possible topics (but not limited to these):
• Portraiture and self-fashioning Sexuality, sexology, repression
• The press and New Journalism
• Gender behavior and hierarchies
• Etiquette books
• Propriety in money matters
• Dress and clothing
• Domestic interiors and furnishing
• Dining and food consumption/preparation
• Religion and behavior
• Class and behavior
• Death and burial rites
• Sports and public athletic activities
• Imperial social hierarchies
• Racial behavior and hierarchies
• Genres: sensation novel, novel of manners, etc.
• The press for women, children, professionals
• Racy, ribald, risqué
• Institutional behavior and expectations
• Life Writings
• Photography: portraits, cartes-de-visite
• Political behavior
• Marriage and courtship
• Child-rearing
• Monuments
• Scientific debates and personalities
• Sages and other public figures
• Social performance of the self
• Theatricality and performance
• Decorum/manners and identities
• Scandals
• Perversion and subversion
• Gambling and racing
• The lowbrow and the popular

 
By March 15, 2011 email 300-word abstract and 1-page CV (name on BOTH) to: Laurel.Williamson@sjcd.edu. 
For further information on the conference, visit http://visawus.org/ 

CFP: VISAWUS 2011: "The Vulgar and the Proper: Victorian Manners & Mores" (3/15, 10/13-15/2011)

16th ANNUAL CONFERENCE of the VICTORIAN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES (VISAWUS)

"The Vulgar and the Proper: Victorian Manners and Mores"

October 13-15, 2011

Houston, TX

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Helena Michie, English, Rice University, author, The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies; Sororophobia: Differences among Women in Literature and Culture; Victorian Honeymoons: Journeys to the Conjugal; co-author, Confinements: Fertility and Infertility in Contemporary Culture, and co- editor, 19th-Century Geographies: The Transformation of Space from the Victorian Age to the American Century. PLENARY SPEAKER: Lynn Voskuil, English, University of Houston, author, Acting Naturally: Victorian Theatricality and Authenticity, and essays in Victorian Studies, Feminist Studies, and ELH. Her current project is entitled "Horticulture and Imperialism: The Garden Spaces of the British Empire."

The 16th annual conference focuses on Victorian obsessions with vulgarity and propriety. We invite proposals on manners and mores in politics, culture, society, religion, art, science, economics, rural life, and other Victorian matters of decorum and propriety and what Victorians deemed vulgar, crude or crass. We encourage papers across all disciplines, including (but not restricted to) art history, literature, gender, history of science, history, material culture, political science, performance, life writings, journalism, photography, popular culture, and economics.

By March 15, 2011 email 300-word abstract and 1-page CV (name on BOTH) to: Laurel.Williamson@sjcd.edu.

Download the full CFP here, and click here for more information on VISAWUS.