British Association for Romantic Studies President’s Report for 2016
This is an exciting time to be President of BARS. Thanks to a buoyant membership (currently almost 400) and last year’s highly successful conference at Cardiff, we are in a stable and healthy financial state. This means that we have been able to expand our activities in key areas, improve our web presence, digitize The BARS Review, and expand our international collaboration. Here are some of our initiatives:
- For Early Career Researchers, there are several new Fellowships: the Scottish Romanticism Award, the Wordsworth Trust Fellowship, and the ‘Nineteenth Century Matters’ award. We also hope to include some new training events and opportunities to work with partner institutions at the next biennial conference in 2017. Our new focus on public engagement was launched with a very successful training session run by Nicola Watson at the BARS PG and ECR conference, ‘Romantic Voices’.
- The BARS First Book Prize award will run again this academic year, with the winner announced at the biannual conference in July 2017. We are delighted that Professor Nigel Leask has agreed to chair the panel.
- The BARS Blog includes ‘Five Questions’ with authors of recent books, and regular announcements.
- The BARS Review is now digital: this has enabled us to include over 30 reviews per issue and to include a ‘spotlight’ on emerging areas of interest.
- Despite Brexit, we are exploring the possibility of a new European-wide network of Romantic associations and partner institutions, provisionally known as ERA (European Romanticism Association).
- We now sponsor a BARS panel at the annual NASSR conference.
- We have commissioned BARS postcards, to be used for publicity purposes.
We have also increased the budget for our current schemes: the Copley bursaries, the regular subvention of conferences, and the BARS First Book award. The PG and ECR conference (held this year in Oxford) continues to be a great success.
None of this would have been possible without the commitment and enthusiasm of the BARS Executive Committee, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank Nicky, Anthony, Jane, the two Matts, the two Susans, Gillian, Helen, Honor, Neil and Dan.
Finally, a reminder that that our next biennial conference ‘Romantic Improvement’ will be held at the University of York, 27-30 July 2017. The CFP will be issued soon, and I look forward to seeing you all there for what is sure to be an instructive and fun occasion.
Ian Haywood
University of Roehampton, London
August 2016