The BARS Digital Events Committee want to thank our members and followers for submitting such a range of excellent proposals for our new online events series.
In 2020, the committee scheduled three events on ‘Perspectives on the Field’, ‘Digital Editions in Romantic Studies’ and ‘Digital Teaching in Romantic Studies’. You can now view the recording of these events, hosted on Zoom. Thank you to everyone who attended and to all those who joined the discussion, as well as our dedicated speakers! The final event of 2020, ‘Digital Teaching’, will take place this Thursday at 5pm.
We can now share with you the details of the forthcoming events for 2021, curated and designed by those who submitted proposals to our call. We want the BARS Digital Events Series to be shaped by our members and to speak to the needs and concerns of those involved in Romantic Studies right now.
Here are some dates for your diary – more comprehensive descriptions will be shared ahead of specific events.
View all posts relating to the BARS Digital Event Series (including links to recordings) on the BARS Blog here.
Please note all times listed here are UK time (GMT/BST)
Tuesday 26th January, 5pm
Burns Night
The Burns Supper is a tradition with its roots in the Romantic period. We propose using the order of toasts and entertainments at a Burns Supper to structure an academic event celebrating Scottish Romanticism with an interdisciplinary excursus on whisky production in the Romantic period.
Speakers: Andrew McInnes (Edge Hill University); Gerard Carruthers (Glasgow University); Darroch Bratt (University of the Highlands and Islands); Ainsley McIntosh (Editor of the Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott’s Poetry); James Kelly (University of Exeter); Zayneb Allak (Edge Hill University).
Thursday 18th February, 5pm
The Late Mary Shelley
The British Association for Romantic Studies is delighted to welcome you to the fifth session of our Digital Events series: ‘The Late Mary Shelley’. Please join us on Thursday 18 February at 5pm GMT on Zoom for a roundtable discussion between Dr Antonella Braida, Kathleen Hurlock, Professor Michael Rossington, Professor Angela Wright, and Carly Yingst, chaired by Dr Amanda Blake Davis. During the session, our guests will belatedly mark the anniversary of Mary Shelley’s death on February 1st by discussing her later life, works, and legacy, celebrating Shelley’s many achievements beyond and after Frankenstein. After this, the audience will be invited to take part in a moderated Q&A session.
Speakers: Antonella Braida (Université de Lorraine), Kathleen Hurlock (University of Georgia), Michael Rossington (Newcastle University), Angela Wright (University of Sheffield), Carly Yingst (Harvard University)
Chair: Amanda Blake Davis
Thursday 4th March, 5pm
Romanticism and the Museum
A roundtable which discusses the challenges facing museums and heritage institutions and organisations in 2021. It will draw on the speakers’ experiences of Romantic writers’ house museums and explore diversifying audiences, digital exhibitions and communications; funding; collections: care and promotion; and the relationship between academia and museums.
Speakers: Jeff Cowton (Curator & Head of Learning at Wordsworth Grasmere); Charlotte May (University of Nottingham, Keswick Museum), Rob Shakespeare (Principal Curator at Keats House Museum, Hampstead); Nicola Watson (Open University); Amy Wilcockson (University of Nottingham).
Chair: Anna Mercer (Cardiff University).
Thursday 25th March, 5pm
Romantic Forms
This roundtable explores the myriad forms in which Romantic writers wrote, connecting these to the topics and arguments found within texts. It looks at how form impacted on and was knowingly used to express ideologies and politics in texts by Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Mary Inchbald, Frances Burney, and S. T. Coleridge.
Speakers: Shellie Audsley (University of Hong Kong); Amanda Auerbach (Catholic University); Anne-Claire Michoux (University of Zurich); Rebekah Musk (Lancaster University); Jack Rooney (Ohio State University).
Chair: Ian Haywood (University of Roehampton)
Thursday 15th April, 5pm
Geo & Eco-Criticism: Returning to Romantic Italy
Exploring the possibilities of combining ecocritical and geocritical approaches, the roundtable aims to propose this methodological intersection as a way of unlocking new features of Romantic-period treatments of the connections between the environment and humans, their identities, activities, and institutions. The aim is to discuss the potential advantages of this mixed approach by throwing new light on Romantic-period representations of Italy as a particularly complex and unstable crucible of issues of nature and nurture, ecosystems and political systems, environment and polities.
CISR (Inter-University Centre for the Study of Romanticism) Speakers: Serena Baiesi (University of Bologna); Paolo Bugliani (University of Pisa); Lilla Maria Crisafulli (University of Bologna); Diego Saglia (University of Parma); Elena Spandri (University of Siena).
Chair: Gioia Angeletti (University of Parma).
Thursday 6th May, 5pm
Transgender/ Nonbinary Romanticism
A roundtable to discuss the new and ongoing work on transgender and nonbinary representations, lives, and legacies in the Romantic period. The speakers cover topics such as (resisting) identity, sexuality, dysphoria, and gender politics in Romantic texts.
Speakers: Kate Singer (Mount Holyoke College); Julia Ftacek (Western Michigan University); Alex Gatten (University of Connecticut); Chris Washington (Francis Marion University).
Chair: Chris Washington (Francis Marion University).
Thursday 27th May, 5pm
State of the Arts
Scholars of British Romantic literature have become increasingly attentive to the material and cultural contexts inhabited by the period’s authors. This roundtable will showcase some of the innovative work being undertaken in this field for The Edinburgh Companion to Romanticism and the Arts. Each participant will offer a five-minute presentation of their chapter, organized around a key image, allowing plenty of time for discussion about how visual studies have reshaped how we approach and understand the boundaries between print and visual culture in the period.
Speakers: Laura Engel (Duquesne University); Ian Haywood (University of Roehampton); Jill Heydt-Stevenson (University of Colorado); Alison O’Byrne (University of York); Kacie Wills (Illinois College).
Chairs: Maureen McCue (Bangor University) and Sophie Thomas (Ryerson University).
Thursday 17th June, 5pm
Dialogues and Receptions
This roundtable traces the conversations and legacies surrounding Romantic writers such as William Blake, Percy Shelley, William Hazlitt, Alexander Pope, Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. These speakers shed new light on these writers, often by looking at the nexus of connections and influences between these individuals.
Speakers: Eleanor Booty (Durham University); Bysshe Inigo Coffey (Newcastle University); Octavia Cox (University of Nottingham); Daniela Farkas (The Pennsylvania State University).
Chair: Mark Sandy (Durham University)
Thursday 8th July, 5pm
Re-envisioning Romantic Publishing
This roundtable will address trends in Romantic and Romantic-period studies journal publishing, and help demystify the practices of journal publishing. Ideal for graduate students and early career researchers.
Chair: Jonathan Mulrooney (College of the Holy Cross – editor of the Keats-Shelley Journal)
Participants: Emma Hills (University of Southampton – Romance, Revolution and Reform); Charles Mahoney (University of Connecticut – Wordsworth Circle); Lucy Morrison (University of Nebraska – European Romantic Review); Jennifer Reed (Boston University – Studies in Romanticism); Alexander Regier (Rice University – SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900); Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow – Romanticism on the Net); Alan Vardy (Hunter College, CUNY – Essays in Romanticism) and Paul Youngquist (University of Colorado – Romantic Circles)
Thursday 29th July, 5pm
Seeing Through Whiteness
This roundtable centres The History of Mary Prince (1831) as a profound challenge to Romanticism and as precursor to many arguments about whiteness to be made in Black Studies. It brings together experts on Prince to highlight gender, labour, motherhood and property in the text and to argue for these aspects as a powerful counter-narrative to Romanticism’s self-idealization. The panel will point to Romanticism’s need for Black studies, not as a co-opted or assimilated area, but as an external force that puts it under considerable pressure.
Speakers: Kristina Huang (University of Wisconsin–Madison); Shelby Johnson (Florida Atlantic University); Felicia Bishop Denaud (Brown University); Kerry Sinanan (University of Texas at San Antonio).