The British Association for Romantic Studies is looking to expand its provision for members in the years between its international conferences by running a series of one-day digital symposia, beginning later in 2025. Along with the Digital Events series, these symposia will allow for discussions between BARS’ major conferences and will provide spaces for addressing more specialised topics. BARS’ International and Early Career and Postgraduate conferences necessarily use broad themes to ensure they can accommodate as wide a range of research as possible. We hope that a symposia series will provide means for highlighting and discussing major current issues in Romantic Studies, ideally led by the interests of the BARS membership.
To this end, the BARS Executive is calling for expressions of interest from members (individuals or groups) who are interested in curating a digital symposium in the summer of 2025 (timed to avoid clashes with Romantic (Un)Consciousness, BARS’ Early Career and Postgraduate Conference in September). A BARS symposium can include invited speakers, but must have an open call element and must include the work of postgraduate and early career scholars. Beyond those provisos, we are happy to explore different modes of structuring and organising. Organisers will have the support of the BARS Executive for circulating calls and managing logistics.
If you would like to propose a symposium, please send an email with an outline (a title, a paragraph or two on the theme, a list of suggested topics for papers) to bars.digitalevents@gmail.com. The BARS Executive will read all expressions of interest received by Friday February 21st and will select one or two for our initial trial.