Help the Undershaw Preservation Trust restore Arthur Conan Doyle's Residence

Undershaw in Hindhead, Surrey, United Kingdom, is the former residence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his family. A fine example of  late Victorian architecture, it was built in 1897 in an era when few houses were actually designed by the occupier.

http://www.saveundershaw.com/

Undershaw in 1897 with Mary and Kingsley in the driveway

Background

Here he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Return of Sherlock Holmes and entertained many notable people, including Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, J M Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, and the young Virginia Woolfe.                            

‘Undershaw’ was built by Conan Doyle so that his invalid wife Louise, who was suffering from tuberculosis, could benefit from Hindhead’s healthy microclimate and glorious views down the Nutcombe Valley to the South Downs. Nestling in its three acre plot, Doyle himself drafted the first designs of the house, before passing them on to architect and friend Joseph Henry Ball to complete. Doyle had many inspired ideas for his family’s new home, especially the installation of an electric plant (somewhat a rarity in those days) and a magnificent railway in the grounds that proved a constant joy to his children.                             

Undershaw’s location added a few more years to Louise’s life, but she eventually died in 1906 and is buried in Grayshott churchyard, later being joined by her daughter Mary, who died unmarried in the 1970s, and son Kingsley, who died in the 1918 flu pandemic after surviving his wartime duties as a young doctor.                            

After Louise’s death, Conan Doyle wanted to keep Undershaw for his son. But once Kingsley had also died, he saw no reason to hold on to the house and sold it in 1921 for £4,000 …. a considerable loss on the original £10,000 cost of the building and land. From 1924 the house became a hotel, closing its doors in 2004 when Des Moore/ Neil Caffrey of Fossway Ltd purchased the building for development.

Conan Doyle outside Undershaw

Undershaw Today

Today, Undershaw stands sorrowfully empty, neglected and vandalised,  Waverley Borough Council having granted the owners planning permission to carve up the literary, historic house into three flats, with five more homes built on its side.  Modern town houses ….or maintained as the single dwelling that Conan Doyle designed and had built? The Undershaw Preservation Trust is vigorously working towards the latter.   

Undershaw today as it stands sorrowfully neglected

Mission

The preferred vision of the Undershaw Preservation Trust would be to see it restored, in period style, the house, stable, well and grounds . . . all of which have survived 113 years. Trees could be thinned to open up views from the garden down the Nutcombe Valley to the South Downs and, with permission, a bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes (or Conan Doyle) could be appropriately placed at the Hindhead crossroads. Undershaw could become a self supporting Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle Museum (with refreshment area for visitors) and exhibits could be in conjunction with the Portsmouth Museum’s 50,000 item Doyle collection of John Gibson’s late friend, Richard Lancelyn Green. The Museum could then become part of a Conan Doyle tour, including visits to his London connections, Portsmouth Museum and his grave in the New Forest’s Minstead Chruchyard.                             

The Campaign -Where we are now?                            

John Gibson, founder of the UPT, has personally obtained Counsel’s opinion as to whether the planning permission granted by Waverley Borough Council  was in fact unlawful. He is now in detailed discussion with solicitors who are preparing Judicial Review papers for submission to the Royal Courts of Justice to have WBC’s decision overturned. This information will be updated as soon as we receive further news. Running concurrently with this application for a Judicial Review is a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman about Waverley Borough Council’s handling of Undershaw over the last 5 years.  Further information on this will be given as and when available.                      

What can be done to help?                            

Anyone feeling strongly about this matter should make their representations known to: Mary Orton, the Chief Executive of Waverley Borough Council or Matthew Evans the Chief Planning Officer of Waverley Borough Council, Council Offices, The Burys, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 1HR.  Ask them to use their best endeavours however onerous,  to rectify the situation to save Undershaw for the Waverley area, and the nation as a single dwelling house so that options are left open for future use of the house as a small country hotel or even more desirably, a museum and cafeteria. Like the houses of Jane Austen at Chawton, Gilbert White at Selborne, Winston Churchill’s at Westerham  and Kipling’s Bateman’s at East Sussex  (all shown in the slideshow opposite) future generations can enjoy Doyle’s literary heritage. (Note: When writing your representations to the Council please ask for an acknowledgement and send further reminders if they are not forthcoming).                             

You can also help by giving the campaign as much publicity as possible through Facebook and Twitter and directing people to this site or our Facebook page.      

Five Easy Ways to Help Save Undershaw      

1. Like us on Facebook.     

2. Suggest us to your Facebook friends  using the ‘Share’ link at the bottom left of our Facebook page.      

3. Follow @spiritangel04 on Twitter. Retweet our tweets so that your followers see them.      

4. Tweet a #FollowFriday recommendation for us.

5. Mention Save Undershaw on your blog and add our site to your links section.    

Whatever way you choose to support the campaign we thank you for your valuable help.                      

Introducing the members of the Undershaw Preservation Trust

Patron and Sponsor Mark Gatiss, Actor, Screenwriter and Novelist               

We have the pleasure and utmost honour to welcome Mark Gatiss as our all important addition to the Trust. Mark has kindly accepted the role as patron and sponsor in our bid to save Undershaw.               

A  few words from Mark:              

“I would like to express my whole-hearted enthusiasm for the campaign to save Undershaw. It seems to me a very sad reflection on our times that the home of one of our greatest and most popular writers should be so neglected and in danger of unsympathetic redevelopment.              

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle occupied several residences in his prolific and thrilling career, only Undershaw bears the stamp of his massive personality. Here the Hound of the Baskervilles first breathed spectral life and Sherlock Holmes himself was resurrected from the Reichenback Falls. Here Stoker, Barrie and Hornung and many others were entertained. It’s no exaggeration to say that Undershaw was the centre of Doyle’s life during perhaps the most fruitful and fascinating phase of his career. It must be saved and take its place among the sensitively preserved residences of this country’s other literary giants. This is certainly a three-pipe problem but not, I am convinced, an insoluble one.”              

A fabulous interview with Mark was carried out by BBC Radio Surrey, covering Sussex and Kent for their Drive Time. If you missed this interview you can listen to it again  in the Media Coverage section on the right  hand side of this page under ‘BBC Drive Time’            

Founder and Director  John Gibson, FRICS                             

 John founded the Trust in 2009 to help preserve and protect Undershaw as a single dwelling, so that all options remain viable for the future. The Heritage Lottery Fund has indicated that it may match fund any money raised to save the historic house. John’s interest in Conan Doyle has taken him as far afield as Switzerland and California and he has assisted Sothebys, London and Pacific Book Auctions in San Francisco with Doyle collections. Having known Undershaw for over 40 years John has involved the Victorian Society in the property as well as campaigning for its future in the National Press and on national and international television, including coverage in Russia. He personally spoke at the planning committee hearing in 2006 , when the owners previous redevelopment application for Undershaw was rejected.                            

Co-founder and Assistant Director: Miss Lynn Gale                             

Lynn modestly says that she is an ordinary person who appreciates life. She is passionate about history and the people who make it and this has led her to her ‘incredible journey to save Conan Doyle’s home’. She would like to make history happen by extraordinarily resurrecting Undershaw, just as Sherlock Holmes was resurrected there. Lynn has spent a year researching the history of Conan Doyle and has campaigned with a passion to raise awareness of the need to save this historical landmark.   Whilst in the throes of campaigning Lynn has been  researching the idea of a TV documentary on Doyles time at Undershaw and the efforts that has been made to save it.                             

Co-founder and Assistant Director: Mrs Sue Meadows                             

Sue is an admirer of the many talents that Conan Doyle had, but his sense of justice particularly resonates with her. As the creator of the world’s most recognised fictitious character, he only once created and had built a house for himself and his family …. Undershaw. Within its walls his writing was prolific and he entertained many famous characters and literary luminaries there. The homes of less revered authors have been saved for worldwide followers to enjoy and, if Undershaw’s literay heritage and integrity are lost, a huge miscarriage of justice would be perpetrated. It would also deny Hindhead of a much needed focal point for its post tunnel regeneration.  

Visit the following website to learn how you can support the Undershaw Preservation Trust and to leave feedback: http://www.saveundershaw.com/

NVSA 2011 Conference "Systems and Archives" (4/15-17/2011)

The Northeast Victorian Studies Association 2011 conference on “Systems and Archives” will take place on April 15-17 at the University of Maryland, College Park. Keynote speakers are Nicholas Daly, Bernard Lightman, Catherine Robson, and Paul Saint-Amour. Special events include a pre-conference session on Digital Archives with Andrew Stauffer of NINES and an evening magic show.

The program and registration form can be found at: http://nvsa.org/

Registration forms are due by March 15^th. 

Travel and hotel information can be found at: http://www.englweb.umd.edu/englfac/JRudy/NVSAtravel.html

CFP: Charles Dickens: Past, Present, and Future (6/1/2011; 10/21-22/2011)

Call for Papers:  Victorians Institute Conference
Charles Dickens: Past, Present, and Future
October 21-22, 2011, Myrtle Beach, SC

To help usher in the global celebration of his bicentenary in 2012, the 41st annual conference of the Victorians Institute will focus rather broadly on the life and work of Charles Dickens. We welcome papers that examine Dickens's writings and their relevance to us today.  We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary essays exploring the literary life and legacy of Dickens in relation to science, economics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, law, history, aesthetics, and theater and film adaptation.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Dickens's Journalism
• Dickens and the Literary Marketplace
• Dickens and Mass Culture
• Dickensian Friendships
• Dickensian Scandals
• The Dickens Circle
• Catherine Dickens
• Dickens and Science
• Dickens and Emotion
• Reading Dickens
• Dickensian Afterlives
• Spiritualism and Spirituality in Dickens
• Dickens's Moral Philosophy
• Dickens and the Posthuman
• Dickens and Travel
• Theatrical Dickens
• Dickens in America
• Dickens and Empire
• The Dickens Industry
• The Postmodern Dickens
• Teaching Dickens

Please send proposals of no more than 500 words and a brief one-paragraph bio by June 1, 2011 to:  Dr. Maria K. Bachman, Department of English, P.O. Box 261954, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina 29528-6054. Email: mbachman@coastal.edu

Victorians Institute & Journal: http://www.vcu.edu/vij/index.htm

CFP: MLA 2012: Electronic Roundtable Demonstrating Digital Pedagogy (3/1/2011, 1/5-8/2012)

Victorianists may be interested in the following, considering that many Digital Humanities projects have come from Victorian-era studies.

Electronic Roundtable Demonstrating Digital Pedagogy
MLA 2012
Seattle, Washington
January 5-8, 2012


Discussions about digital projects and digital tools often focus on research goals. For this electronic roundtable, we will instead demonstrate how these digital resources, tools, and projects have been integrated into undergraduate and graduate curriculum in alignment with the MLA 2012 Presidential Theme: Language, Literature, Learning. Proposals may include demonstrations of:

• successful collaboration with undergraduates on your digital scholarly project
• specific assignments, including student learning goals, teaching strategies, successes/failures, grading rubrics
• integrating digital assignments with general education requirements
• assessment of student digital projects
• constructing syllabi with digital-focused assignments
• portals for collecting digital-focused syllabi and assignments

This Roundtable session will contain up to eight presenters. Presenters will engage in informal discussion or offer interactive electronic demonstrations. Electronic roundtables allow attendees to circulate among eight stations that will be set up around the meeting room with appropriate audiovisual equipment.

Presenters are welcome from a broad range of institutions with a range of contexts and budget demands. Selection of participants will be based on a cross-spectrum of styles, classrooms, student experience, successes, and failures. If possible, we will try to submit two electronic roundtables; however, this is a Special Session not yet accepted by the MLA.

300-word proposals by March 1 to Katherine D. Harris (katherine.harris@sjsu.edu). Please email with questions.

Program: New MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies at King’s College London

Studying the Nineteenth Century at King’s College in the heart of London

The MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies at King’s College London is a new interdisciplinary degree, set to begin September 2011, that focuses on the history, literature, visual culture, built environment and legacy of the nineteenth-century world.  Taught by specialists from History, English and Geography, the programme offers an exceptionally wide range of modules. Students take a core module called Doing Nineteenth-Century Studies, which introduces a range of topics and concepts based on themes such as “nation, state and empire," “the country and the city," and “representing the nineteenth century." They also complete a 15,000-word research dissertation and can choose from more than 15 optional modules. Students can also work as an intern with key cultural and heritage organisations in London including English Heritage, the National Maritime Museum, the Museum of London Archaeology Service, the Post Office Museum and the Royal College of Surgeons Hunterian Museum.  These internship projects are counted as part of the degree.

One bursary of £6000 is available for applicants intending to enter the degree in 2011.

To apply please visit our website at
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/prospectus/graduate/nineteenth_century_studies/details

For any questions please contact Dr Niall O’Flaherty by email at niall.o'flaherty@kcl.ac.uk

Event: International Conference on Narrative (4/7-10/2011)

The 2011 Narrative Conference will take place in St. Louis, Missouri, April 7-10. The Schedule at a Glance, which includes all the plenary speakers and their topics, and an (incompletely proofread) version of the program that lists the speakers in the simultaneous sessions are both now online at http://narrative.wustl.edu.

The Conference will be held at the Sheraton Hotel in Clayton, which is a suburb of St. Louis, and on the Washington University campus.  Hotel reservations at the Clayton Sheraton need to be made by 5:00 p.m. March 7 to receive the special Conference rate.  The hotel site can be reached at http://narrative.wustl.edu/conference-hotel.html.  To register for the Conference please go to http://narrative.wustl.edu/registration.html. The discount for early registration is in effect until March 1.

Spring in St. Louis is beautiful and by early April it is usually well begun.  The quality of the proposals promises an intellectual feast for those of us interested in any of the many aspects of narrative studies. As Conference coorganizers, Erin McGlothlin and I look forward to welcoming those who are presenting and those who come just to listen--including, we hope, many of the colleagues whose names have become familiar through the Narrative listserv.

CFP: Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism online edition

Call for Articles: Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism online edition

The editors of the DNCJ are keen to expand its coverage of the local and regional press, for the online edition -  http://c19index.chadwyck.com/marketing/aboutdncj.jsp - and any revised print edition. 

I am looking for short entries (400-800 words, depending on entry) on 

• Leader, Robert (editor and publisher of Sheffield Independent) 
• Reid, Sir Thomas Wemyss (editor of Leeds Mercury; managing director of Cassell, biographer) 
• Smiles, Samuel (editor of Leeds Times) 
• Gedge, Johnson, proprietor of the Bury and Norwich Post 
• Baxter, W.E, of Lewes, proprietor of Sussex Agricultural Express and 23 other titles 
• Birmingham Weekly Post 
• Bradford Daily Telegraph (successful paper rapidly established by non-local publisher and staff) 
• Bradford Observer and its editor William Byles 
• Bristol Mercury 
• Carlisle Journal 
• Catholic Fireside 
• Catholic Magazine and Reflector (1801), a Liverpool monthly "probably the earliest Catholic periodical published in England"
• Daily Bristol Times and Mirror 
• Eastern Morning News, Hull 
• Ipswich Journal 
• Lancashire Free Press/Northern Free Press/Catholic Times, published in Liverpool. 
• Leicestershire Mercury 
• Liverpool Weekly Post 
• Manchester Weekly Times 
• Midland Counties Express 
• Oxford Times 
• Reading Mercury (owned by Catholic family, featured much agricultural news) 
• Sheffield Independent 
• Western Daily Press, Bristol 
• Western Morning News, Plymouth 
• Westmorland Gazette (edited briefly by de Quincey; still very literary in 1870s) 
• Whitehaven News 
• Advertisers (free local newspapers, e.g. Penrhyn Advertiser, Cornwall, Preston Weekly Advertiser) 
• Agricultural journalism (as element, and as separate titles, e.g. Preston Guardian; Leics Advertiser; Bedford Express; Sussex Agricultural Express; North of England Farmer (Newcastle); Mark Lane Express, Bell’s Weekly Messenger) 
• Almanacs 
• Dialect publications 
• Evening newspapers 
• Independent, neutral (what the terms meant as applied to newspapers; growth of these descriptions) 
• Joint stock companies (influence on increasing capitalisation of newspapers, anonymity of owners, use by Conservative provincial papers)
• Lit. and the provincial press (book reviews, excerpts, etc. were significant features in most titles; taken together, an enormous body of writing, possibly outweighing reviews produced in London)
• Local government, reporting of 
• News placard (important source of news for public, often attracting crowds) 
• Newspaper chains 
• Newspaper office architecture (description and meanings of – miniature town halls and libraries) 
• Provincial Roman Catholic press 
• Provincial magazines 
• Provincial religious press 
• Shipping news 
• Weather reports 
• Women’s columns (staple of provincial press, often syndicated)

I am also looking for 1000-word entries on the periodical and newspaper press of these cities and regions (similar to current entry on Manchester press): 

• Sheffield 
• Leeds 
• Birmingham 
• South-West England 
• South-East England

If you would like to write an entry or entries, contact me at ahobbs2@uclan.ac.uk with a one-page sample of your writing (published or unpublished).


Andrew Hobbs
University of Central Lancashire
Original cfp: http://uclan.academia.edu/AndrewHobbs/Blog

Call for Contributers: Victorian Poetry Network

Victorian Poetry Network

Call for Contributers

Mission
The Victorian Poetry Network (VPN) aims to be a virtual hub for Victorian poetry research and teaching. VPN is a collaborative project, bringing together scholars and students of Victorian poetry to create a dynamic digital community. VPN will achieve three things: a blog authored by the VPN team and invited scholars in the field, a resource centre for research projects and teaching, and a social space. We are adding new content all the time, so please bookmark the site and check back often!


Resources
VPN encourages scholars to discuss, share, and advance their research through a number of resources: 

• Blog posts include editorials, news and events, poems of the month, and  research and journals. VPN bloggers promote lively discussions about specific poems and examine current topics of scholarship especially, but not limited to, social media's role in the circulation and representation of Victorian poetry. 
• Virtual Classroom showcases undergraduates' multimedia and written projects, and provides teaching resources, such as sample syllabi and course websites. 
• Projects indexed on VPN link to archives and other digital resources for Victorian studies. 

Join VPN

We are looking for interested colleagues and students to contribute to the website (writing blogs posts, commenting on the poem of the month, joining us as researchers for the periodical poetry database, and contributing teaching resources and star student essays to the virtual classroom). Please also send us details of any of your research initiatives that have an online presence, for inclusion in our project pages.

VPN Official Site http://web.uvic.ca/~vicpoet/

CFP: 2011-12 JVC Graduate Student Essay Prize (6/30/2011)

ANNOUNCEMENT

Journal of Victorian Culture

 Graduate Student Essay Prize 2011-12

  

We are pleased to announce the next competition. The aim of the JVC Essay Prize is to promote scholarship among postgraduate research students working on the Victorian period in any discipline in the UK and abroad. The essay, which must be no longer than 7000 words in length (including footnotes), may be on any aspect of Victorian culture appropriate for the scope of the journal (this embraces literature and history, including cultural, intellectual, social, political, economic and religious history; the history of music, science, technology, medicine, theatre and visual culture; historical geography). The editorial board welcomes essays that adopt an interdisciplinary approach to their subject matter. However, the board also encourages essays which, while focusing on one sub-discipline, reflect on the implications of their argument for other Victorian studies constituencies. Authors should keep in mind this question: how is this research of interest to other Victorianists?

The essay must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere, and should not be submitted to any other journal until the outcome of the competition is known. Applicants who are completing doctoral degrees are advised to check with their institutions any regulations covering the publication of material extracted from their theses prior to the submission of the whole thesis.

 

The prize 

Publication of the winning essay in JVC, £100 cash prize, and a free year’s subscription to JVC.

Conditions 

Word limit: maximum of 7000 words, plus an abstract (250 words), keywords and a word count (with and without footnotes).

Entrants should follow the JVC style guidelines in link below

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1355-5502&linktype=44

Closing date for submissions to the Editor: 30 June 2011

The competition will open to anyone currently registered for a higher research degree, or is within 3 years of the completion of one. An entry form will be available on the JVC website and will require the signature of the Academic Supervisor, confirming the entrant’s status.   

Judging 

Entries should be submitted to the journal in the normal manner, but must also be accompanied by the downloadable JVC Essay Prize entry form (available from the publisher’s website:

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rjvc

All published essays will be subject to the same copyright terms as everything else published in JVC. The decision of the judges will be final and no correspondence will be considered. There is only one prize and the judges reserve the right to award no prize if submitted material is not of an appropriate standard.  The judges for the prize will be the Editorial Board of the Journal of Victorian Culture.  The process of selection will, accordingly, fulfil the requirements of peer review.  The judges reserve the right to recommend revisions to the prize-winning essay prior to publication.

 Previous prize winning essays 

Louise Lee, "Voicing, De-Voicing and Self-Stuttering: Charles Kingsley’s Stuttering Christian Manliness" (winner, 2007-8)


 Tiffany Watt-Smith, "Darwin’s Flinch: Sensation Theatre and Scientific Looking in 1872" (winner, 2009-10)


JVC:  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t908134896
JVC Online: http://myblogs.informa.com/jvc/

JVC Online: Editorial Assistant(s) and Postgraduate Publication Opportunities (5/31/2011)

Journal of Victorian Culture
Editorial Assistant(s) and Postgraduate Publication Opportunities

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Victorian Culture (JVC) is pleased to invite applications from doctoral or recent postdoctoral researchers in the field of Victorian Studies for the position of Editorial Assistant(s) to the JVC Online.


The Editorial Assistants will play a significant role in editing and developing content for the newly-launched JVC Online, which provides a stimulating forum for news, reviews, and short articles complementing our highly-regarded journal issues. The successful candidate(s) will receive a stipend of £1000 p.a. over the course of the year and be expected to show initiative in content generation and site development in addition to gaining valuable experience of more conventional academic editorial and publication practices. Specific tasks will include ensuring the regular updating of our conference, events, and resources pages; contributing to our discussion forum; raising the profile and developing the interactivity of the site through bookmarking and social networking.

An important element of JVC Online is our "Victorians Beyond the Academy" series of review essays and posts, responding to the presence of all things Victorian outside conventional academic study. As part of the selection process for this post, we are soliciting posts and contributions to "Victorians Beyond the Academy." Interested applicants are invited to contribute one or more posts (reviews, meditations, position pieces etc) demonstrating their engagement with the wider cultural sphere of Victorian studies over the coming months prior to the application deadline of 31 May, 2011.

We are seeking relatively brief and timely pieces addressing the presence of all things Victorian in contemporary culture: applicants may wish to read recent contributions by Val Purton, Julie-Marie Strange, and Kathryn Hughes to "Victorians Beyond the Academy" for an indication of the material we seek. Applicants should contact Lisa Hager (lisa.hager@uwc.edu) to have a contributor account set up for JVC Online so to begin posting.

Applicants for the position of Editorial Assistant should send a CV/resume and cover letter, outlining their experience and suitability for the position of Editorial Assistant, via email to our Online Editor, Lisa Hager (lisa.hager@uwc.edu). The cover letter should include links to and a brief outline of the candidate’s posts to JVC Online's "Victorians Beyond the Academy." The successful applicant(s) for the position of Editorial Assistant will be expected to work closely with the Journal's Editors, Helen Rogers and Joseph Bristow in addition to Online Editor Lisa Hager and Assistant Editor Ruth Livesey.

Please direct all enquiries relating to this position in the first instance to Lisa Hager (lisa.hager@uwc.edu).

The closing date for applications is 31 May, 2011.
JVC Online: http://myblogs.informa.com/jvc/
JVC:  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t908134896

CFP: International Steampunk City: Panels, Lectures, and Roundtables for the Academic Track (3/15; 5/6-8/2011)

International Steampunk City

Waltham, MA

May 6-8, 2011

CFP: Panel, Lecture, and Round-Table Topics

Organizer: Catherine Siemann, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cooper Union & John Jay College, CUNY

Catherine Siemann in the process of pulling together an Academic Track for the International Steampunk City, to be held on May 6-8 in Waltham, Massachusetts.  The event, which is a benefit for the Charles River Museum of Industry, is going to involve the entire town of Waltham, with performances, exhibitions, and events of many kinds.  A room in the public library has been reserved for academic panels, lectures, and round-table discussions, dealing with steampunk, or with 19th-century history, culture, technology, literature, architecture, fashion, etc.

We’re looking for the following, for programming on Saturday, May 7, and Sunday, May 8:

• Academic panels: proposals for individual papers or entire panels on topics related to Steampunk or to relevant 19th-century history, culture, technology, literature, architecture, fashion, etc. Because of the relatively short time frame in planning this, we would encourage you to submit informal indications of intent sooner, rather than later. Formal proposals are due by March 15.

• Lectures: proposals for  30-45 minute presentation on a relevant topic; there will be room on the schedule for some presentations of this type.  Again, formal proposals by March 15, but we would appreciate hearing sooner, if you’re planning to propose something.

• Round tables: more informal discussions, with a single moderator or a panel, again on topics relevant to Steampunk or 19th-century history and culture.

If you’re interested in participating, please contact Catherine at csiemann@gmail.com.  This is going to be a major event, and one well worth being involved with.  

Click here for media coverage. 

Click here for the official website.

MLA 2012 Romantic and Victorian Periods Collaborative Panel: Style, Early and Late (3/15/11; 1/5-8/12)

Style, Early and Late

a proposed collaborative panel sponsored by the MLA Divisions on The English Romantic Period and The Victorian Period

We seek papers that consider the concept, theory, practice, and/or reception of style in the long nineteenth century. Possible topics include historical and/or individual styles (Gothicism, realism/Wordsworth, Eliot); temporal inflections (the retro, the en avant); comparisons of early and late style within careers (Scott, Dickens, or Carlyle) or between them (early Blake and late Hardy); social styles (arriving late, departing early); political styles (Radical, Tory, Whig); disciplinary styles; staying in style (Austen), going out of style (Bulwer Lytton), and coming into (Blake) or back into (Hemans, Oliphant) style.

Send 250-350 word proposals by 15 March to Eileen Gillooly (eg48@columbia.edu) and Celeste Langan (clangan@berkeley.edu).

MLA 2012 Conference

Seattle, 5-8 January

CFP: MLA Division on the Victorian Period 2012 Panels: Evidence; Ethics and Literary Experience (3/15/2011; 1/5-8/2012)

MLA Division on the Victorian Period 2012 Panels

2012 MLA Conference

Seattle, 5-8 January

Evidence
Although the etymology of the term suggests otherwise, the “evidence” we recruit to support our claims is seldom conspicuous: in the sciences, in the humanities, and in everyday life, evidence differs among (and is contested within) different disciplines, historical moments, and epistemologies. We seek papers that take up the question of evidence in the Victorian Period and that reflect upon our own evidentiary practices.

What counts in the nineteenth century as a demonstration of a claim in the fields of law, science, history, religion, literature, the arts, sociology, ethnography, medicine, psychology, and so forth? And what might count as a persuasive demonstration of the claims that we make in our scholarship on the period? By what technical and rhetorical means is evidence displayed to any given audience, and how is that audience--whether it be a jury, a religious group, a community of scholars or professionals, a body of citizens--meant to make its judgments? How does an object, image, number, a fragment of language, or a "fact" gain and lose its evidentiary status as it moves between places or between disciplines? To what material, formal, and social constraints is evidence subject? What happens when evidence physically decays? How do categories of evidence gain authority or fall under suspicion? Whose testimony matters? How do representational forms affect the persuasiveness of evidence? How do new kinds of evidence--photography, for example--change existing regimes of knowledge? And what is the history of the suspicion of evidence itself? Is there anxiety that exposure to evidence will entail unappealing or proscribed changes in beliefs?

Send 250-350 word proposals by 15 March 2011 to Eileen Gillooly (eg48@columbia.edu).


Ethics and Literary Experience
“the only effect I ardently long to produce by my writings, is that those who read them should be better able to imagine and to feel the pains and the joys of those who differ from themselves in everything but the broad fact of being struggling erring human creatures”—George Eliot

Much of the writing produced by Victorians was explicitly aimed at evoking sympathy for others (fictional and non-fictional) and developing the moral imagination so as to produce more responsive readers and empathic political subjects. We seek papers that discuss, theorize, and critique the experience--the affective responses; identifications and resistances; imagined political, aesthetic, intellectual, and moral stakes, investments, and implications--of reading Victorian literature(s) ethically.

In what ways is our literary experience ethical? What roles do form, tone, and style play in making it so? By what means and methods do writers offer a compelling, if unrealizable, ideal of what it might mean to be morally wise and ethically responsive, even while representing the ways in which we fail to overcome what Eliot referred to as our “moral stupidity”? How is our own native egocentrism engaged and challenged by the reading experience? What are the ethics of empathic identification? Ought our understanding of a character’s distorting “center of consciousness”—an understanding acquired in the experience of reading--to provoke a recognition of our own similar fate? Does our sympathy for a character and our “knowledge” of that character’s internal life have repercussions beyond the reading experience: that is, can such responsiveness actually shape our interactions with others or help us to interpret them? Send 250-350 word proposals by 15 March to Eileen Gillooly (eg48@columbia.edu).

CFP: Henry James Review: Forum Issue on Leo Bersani and Henry James (3/1/2011)

Henry James Review

Call for Submissions: Fall 2011 Forum issue on Leo Bersani and Henry James

Leo Bersani's 1976 A Future for Astyanax: Character and Desire in Literature was, at the time of its publication, a pathbreaking work of literary criticism and theory. The book as a whole, and Bersani's chapter "The Jamesian Lie"(originally published in Partisan Review in 1969) in particular, radically altered understandings of the structures of desire in James. A Future for Astyanax helped open up James Studies to sophisticated psychoanalytic analysis and to what was, at the time, called "Theory." In reading James with Racine, Emily Brontë, Stendhal, Histoire d'O, Gide, and Robert Wilson, Bersani defamiliarized the Henry James of American and Victorian Studies. And for thirty-five years, Bersani's work has proved not only influential but also generative, a resource for, among others, deconstructive, psychoanalytic, epistemological, gay, and queer readings of James for critics interested in how power, desire, and knowing intertwine in James's writings.

Marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of A Future for Astyanax, the Fall 2011 forum issue of the Henry James Review will take up the broad and varied subject of Bersani and James and will include an Afterword by Leo Bersani.

Submissions on any aspect of the topic are invited. Contributions should be submitted in duplicate and produced according to MLA style. Please enclose a cover letter identifying your manuscript as a Forum submission. Also include return postage. One-page proposals or short (10-12 pages) essays should be sent by March 1, 2011, to:

Susan M. Griffin, Editor
Henry James Review
Department of English
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40292
USA

CFP: Dickens Society 2012 MLA Panels (3/10, 3/15/2011; 1/5-8/2012)

Dickens Society 2012 MLA Panels

2012 MLA Convention

Seattle, January 5-8

Dickensian Things
Dickens' world apparently bursts with things. This panel considers the nature of the Dickensian Thing and asks what we discover about the novel from Dickens' thing-filled authorship. Proposals are welcome on things and thing-ness in Dickensian characterization, plot, and narration. 300-word abstracts by March 15 to Claire Jarvis (cjarvis@stanford.edu).

Dickensian Beginnings
Disruptions and reoriginations of sequential narrative in Dickens's writings: e.g., birth, revolution, climactic events, coronations or regicide, new technologies. Please email a 300-word abstract and short CV by March 15 to Kate Brown (kebrown8@buffalo.edu).

France in Dickens
Creating and breaking stereotypes about French language, literature, culture, history, and taste (culinary and otherwise) in Dickens's writings. 300-word abstracts and short CV by March 10 to Rebecca Stern (stern2@mailbox.sc.edu). [Note: this panel is in partnership with the Division on Nineteenth-Century French Literature, which is also sponsoring a panel on Dickens in France].