Victorian Transnationalism: The Atlantic Legacy in the Long 19th Century, Oct. 11-13, 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS

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.)

NAUGHTY JONATHAN

“You shan’t interfere, Mother—and you ought to be on my side—and it’s a great shame—and I don’t care—and you shall interfere—and I won’t have it.”  - Punch June 6, 1861  

NAVSA 2012: Victorian Networks

CALL FOR PAPERS: NAVSA 2012 "Victorian Networks"

The North American Victorian Studies Association Conference for 2012, in Madison, Wisconsin, September 27-30, invites papers on the theme of networks. Keynotes include Amanda Anderson, Adam Phillips, and a visual networks panel with Caroline Arscott, Tim Barringer, Julie Codell, and Mary Roberts.  Participants will also be able to sign up for networks seminars of 15 presenters of  precirculated 5-page position papers on the topic.

March 1, 2012 is the deadline for electronic submissions of proposed papers and panels. We welcome proposals of no more than 500 words for individual papers; for panel proposals, please submit abstracts of 500 words per paper and a panel description of 250 words. Please include a one-page cv and submit all files in .pdf format to english.wisc.edu/navsa.  Conference threads might include:

n Networks of artists, critics, consumers, scholars

n Networks of print (books, chapbooks, newspapers, magazines, letters, pamphlets), including relations among publishers, printers, editors, writers, readers

n Commodity culture networks and the circulation of things and bodies

n Networks of discourse (such as science, religion, nature, politics)

n The science of networks, then and now

n Textual networks (characters, plot, language, intertextuality)

n Networks of influence, production, reception

n Networks of display or exhibition

n Fashioning networks among otherwise unconnected authors and historical figures

n Transnational and other migrations: geographic, cultural, ideological, rhetorical

n Borders and "borders" -- theorizing cultural connection, separation, entanglement

n Diasporic networks: cosmopolitanism, wandering, exile

n Clandestine networks such as spies, secret agents, and detection

n Networking technologies

n Network arts

n Social networks including leisure clubs and professional societies

n Family and kinship networks

n Victorian cities: streets, arcades, parks, or other networks of urban space

n Imperial networks

n Network forms: gossip, blackmail, suspense, serials,, periodicals, or other genres

n Psychic and supernatural networks: seances, spiritualism, mediums

n Digital networks and twenty-first century reading practices

n Networked periodization: romantic/victorian/modernist

n Networks of resistance: feminist, ecological, queer

n Networks of iteration and translation (between image, text, adaptation)