Dear BARS Members,
Those of you who attended the BARS BGM last summer at the BARS/NASSR 2023 New Romanticisms conference at Edge Hill will recall our plans to address the composition of the BARS Executive in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The BARS Executive is a friendly and collegial gathering of Romanticists from a wide range of career stages, which supports activities and initiatives in the field undertaken by the BARS Membership. Being part of the Executive gives you the opportunity to shape Romantic studies in the UK, and to meet our ambitions to provide a variety of financial support, events, training and resources for Romanticists both at home and overseas.
Our initial plan was to use the disruption as an opportunity to rationalise our protocols to improve the diversity and openness of the Executive while ensuring that important ‘institutional memory’ would be retained during periods of transition. This work, which involves some constitutional changes, has proven unfeasible in the short term, in the wake of other pressures such as the return to work post-pandemic and the ongoing industrial action taking place in UK universities. The Executive have agreed that this work should form the focus of a future iteration of the Committee, which has time to undertake the duties attached with due diligence and appropriate resources.
In the meantime, we are keen to move forward on this matter as it currently stands as expeditiously as possible, and propose a Special Election that responds to the challenges of the pandemic while maintaining the robustness of our current democratic processes. To this end, we are proposing the Re-election of the following post-holders (subject to any objection raised by the Membership) to 2024, when we will gather for our next conference BGM (venue TBC):
Re-election 2023–2024
- President: Anthony Mandal
- Secretary: Jennifer Orr
- Treasurer: Cassie Ulph
- BARS Review Editor: Mark Sandy
- Website Editor: Matt Sangster
We are also inviting submissions of Expressions of Interest for the following posts, to span an initial two-year term to summer 2025
Recently Vacated Posts, to run 2023–2025
- Vice-President (outgoing: Gillian Dow)
- Membership Secretary (outgoing: Tess Somervell)
- Communications Officer (outgoing: Anna Mercer)
- Bursaries Officer (outgoing: Daniel Cook)
These post-holders will join the Executive members who were elected in Summer 2022 (PGR Representatives Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman and Yu-Hung Tien; ECR Representative Amanda Blake Davis), as well as our Co-opted Members who are currently not elected (Outreach and Impact Jeff Cowton; Schools & Education Liaison David Fallon; Conference 2022 Lead Andrew McInnes; Book Prize Chair TBC).
Submitting your Expression of Interest
Please send Expressions of Interest to the BARS Secretary (jennifer.orr@newcastle.ac.uk): these should include an up-to-date CV and a short statement (no more than 500 words) outlining how you would hope to contribute to BARS in the role. We will publish the statement online for the BARS Membership to consider as part of the election process. Any queries should be directed to the BARS President (Mandal@cardiff.ac.uk), as should any objections or intentions to contest the Re-election of the post-holders named above.
Timeline
- EOIs to be returned to the BARS Secretary (jennifer.orr@newcastle.ac.uk) no later than midnight, 6 March 2023
- Candidates’ statements to be published no later than 10 March 2023
- Voting to take place between 13 and 19 March 2023 (Members will be emailed with precise instructions)
- Candidates notified/Results published by 23 March 2023
- Re-elected and newly elected candidates to attend BARS Executive Spring 2023 meeting (online) on 29 March 2023, 12–2pm