The British Association for Romantic Studies is delighted to announce that the 2026 International Biennial Conference will be held at the University of Birmingham. The theme is Romantic Retrospection. The in-person conference will take place between Wednesday 29th and Friday 31st July 2026, with additional online elements held around the in-person conference.
Romantic Retrospection
29th-31st July 2026
The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston Campus, UK
Delegates will be invited to interpret and explore ‘Romantic Retrospection’ from multiple angles, covering a set of concerns that are fundamental to our understanding of the period: pasts personal, local, national, and cultural; vision and revision; allusion and influence; change and conservation; the reception of earlier literature by Romantic writers; and post-Romantic critical and creative responses to the era that shaped the modern world.
The conference will offer the usual panels alongside specially convened workshops and roundtables; subjects for the latter are likely to include textual scholarship and editorial methods, and a reassessment of Romanticism via the legacy of William Wordsworth’s Thirteen-Book Prelude, uncovered by University of Birmingham lecturer Ernest de Selincourt and published in 1926. Delegates will also be invited to submit their own ideas for special events that respond to the theme of retrospection in critically imaginative ways.
Transport
The University of Birmingham Edgbaston campus is very well connected: the University station has frequent links to Birmingham New Street in the city centre, and Birmingham International Airport is approximately 30 minutes away by either train or car.
Call for Papers
The CfP will be issued in summer 2025, with acceptances sent out by the end of the year.
Contacts at The University of Birmingham: Jessica Fay, Andrew Hodgson, Matthew Ward