BARS Executive: Elections and Appointments 2024–2026

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Dear BARS Members,

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.

Over recent years, the Executive has been working to open up the processes for selecting the Exec more expansively, as well as to create structures that maintain the robustness and ‘institutional memory’ of the committee. To this end, we undertook to split elections of the Executive into two separate biennial cycles, while exploring more substantive constitutional changes that reflect our principles and modernize our structures in the longer term.

In March 2023, we held the first of these elections online to cover the 2023–2025 cycle, with the aim of advertising the remaining half for election in 2024–2026. We also re-elected a number of posts to cover the period 2023–2024 in order to achieve our goals.

We are now delighted to announce this second and concluding round of this process, and invite submissions of interest for the following posts to span an initial two-year term to summer 2026 (re-electable/renewable for a second term to 2028).

BARS would like to give our thanks to Anthony Mandal, Cassie Ulph, Mark Sandy, Matthew Sangster, and David Fallon for their sterling service as members of the Executive.

Elected Positions

To be selected by the highest number of votes through online polling, opened to the BARS Membership for a period of one week:

  • President (outgoing: Anthony Mandal)
  • Treasurer (outgoing: Cassie Ulph)

Please see the role descriptions here.

Appointed Positions (Executive and Co-opted)

To be selected by a review panel made up from members of the current Executive Committee:

  • BARS Review Editor (outgoing: Mark Sandy)
  • Website Editor (outgoing: Matthew Sangster)
  • Schools & Education Liaison (outgoing: David Fallon)

Please see the role descriptions here.

These post-holders will join the Executive members who were elected or appointed in 2023 (Vice-President Jennifer Orr; Secretary Andrew McInnes; Membership Secretary Yimon Lo; Communications Officer Amy Wilcockson; Bursaries Officer Gerard McKeever), as well as our Co-opted Members who are currently not elected or appointed (Outreach & Impact Jeff Cowton; Research Carmen Casaliggi; Internationalization Francesca Saggini; Non-Academic Emily Paterson-Morgan). They will also be joined by our yet-to-be-appointed Postgraduate and Early Career Representatives, the posts for which were advertised on 3 May 2024 (deadline for applications 3 June 2024).

Members of the new Executive will be invited to attend our Biennial General Meeting at the BARS 2024 Romantic Making and Unmaking conference at the University of Glasgow for the official handover of roles.

Submitting your Expression of Interest
If you are applying for Treasurer, BARS Review Editor, Website Editor, or Schools & Education Liaison, please send Expressions of Interest with a two-page CV including a brief description of your research to the BARS Secretary, Andrew McInnes (bars.secretary@gmail.com), copying in the President, Anthony Mandal (mandal@cardiff.ac.uk).

If you are applying for President, please sent your Expressions of Interest with a two-page CV including a brief description of your research directly to the current President, Anthony Mandal (mandal@cardiff.ac.uk).

Those applying for the elected posts should directly address the BARS Membership, as we will publish your statement online for the members to consider during the election process. Those applying for the appointed posts should outline the particular skills, experience and passion you would be able to bring to the relevant roles.

Timeline

  • EOIs to be returned to the BARS Secretary, Andrew McInnes, (bars.secretary@gmail.com) no later than midnight, 1 July 2024
  • Candidates’ statements to be published no later than 4 July 2024
  • Voting to take place between 4 and 10 July (Members will be emailed with precise instructions)
  • Candidates notified/Results published by 14 July 2024
  • Newly elected candidates invited to attend Biennial General Meeting at BARS 2024 Romantic Making and Unmaking (Glasgow) on 24 July 2024, 1–1.30pm

If you would like to discuss these positions further, please feel free to get in touch with: