Call for Applications: BARS ‘Gothic Women’ Events Fellow

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THE YEAR OF GOTHIC WOMEN

The year 2023 marks the bicentenary of both Ann Radcliffe’s death and two major publications for Mary Shelley: the first edition of Valperga and the second edition of Frankenstein. The 200th anniversary of such significant moments for these two women writers is made all the more poignant because the year falls between important bicentenary dates for some of the most widely celebrated Romantic men: the death of Keats in 2021, P. B. Shelley in 2022, and Byron in 2024. The ‘Gothic Women’ project will organise a conference in 2023 to celebrate Radcliffe, Shelley, and other Gothic women writers. 

In the build-up to such an event, and in these isolating times, the ‘Gothic Women’ project will present a curated online seminar series in 2021-22 to celebrate the work of ‘Gothic Women’ and to recognise exciting new strands of scholarship on such writers. We will be inviting established, early career, and postgraduate scholars to showcase the diversity of women’s Gothic writing through examining the different ways in which the Gothic thinks about questions of self-definition in a time of crisis. We envisage panels on such subjects as: the forthcoming complete edition of Radcliffe’s work with CUP, Frankenstein ‘then and now’, Valperga and the Gothic in historical fiction, Gothic and the Haitian Revolution, queer Gothic, transnational Gothic, and spotlights on the Gothic vision of authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Dacre, Mary Robinson and Regina Maria Roche. 

The ‘Gothic Women’ team are pleased to invite applications for the position of ‘Gothic Women’ Events Fellow, for a period of one year, starting in June 2021. This fellowship opportunity is fully funded by the British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS).

The Fellow will be a postgraduate student or early career researcher working in Romantic studies, ideally with a focus on one or more Gothic women writers of that period. The position will be paid £500 as an honorarium on the completion of 1 year of service.

The successful applicant will work with the ‘Gothic Women’ project team, assisting them on a number of administrative duties relating to running a new ‘Gothic Women’ online seminar series, starting in September 2021. The role will include running a basic wordpress site, contacting speakers, monitoring online (Zoom) events, managing Eventbrite booking pages, and running social media accounts. Experience in events or social media for academic/research purposes is desired. The Fellow will be expected to attend all online events and will also be invited to attend future ‘Gothic Women’ events (culminating in a conference in 2023). The successful applicant will be expected to contribute to project team meetings, for example by providing suggestions for speakers and topics. We expect the role to require c.1 hour per week, but as we are keen to support an early career colleague, the time we expect to be committed to the project will be flexible in relation to other professional or personal responsibilities.

To apply: please send an academic CV and a personal statement of 500 words explaining why you are best placed to undertake the duties explained above to: mercera1@cardiff.ac.uk

Deadline: 21 May 2021

Informal enquires can be directed to Anna Mercer at the same address.

Project team:

Daniel Cook (University of Dundee)

Laura Kirkley (Newcastle University)

Anna Mercer (Cardiff University)

Deborah Russell (University of York)