22 – 25 May, 2pm-6pm CET
Free registration on Eventbrite
This conference builds on the recognition that, for a movement that resists easy definitions, Romanticism and its aesthetics have enjoyed a remarkably long life. Indeed, speaking of afterlives may raise the question whether Romanticism has in fact passed away. As Matthew Sangster has recently pointed out, the period retrospectively and hazily called Romanticism is not “over, done with, and transcended.” Cross-temporality seems to be inscribed in the history of the word, when translator and reviewer William Taylor, possibly the first to add “ism” to romantic, wrote in the Annual Review (1803) of the “romanticisms of speculative philosophy”, thus ushering into English a new concept marked from its birth by plurality and imaginative verve. The novelty was not lost on Lady Sidney Morgan who, in her 1821 study on Italy and contemporaneous aesthetics, embedded it in an animated European debate, by assuring readers that “The vehemence with which the question of Romanticism has been debated, will have a favourable influence upon the Italians” (Italy 2: 140). Writing of romanticisms in 1803 is echoed by twentieth-century scholars’ advancing of plural Romanticisms. As a modifier, “ism” endows Romanticism with a movement from the past, through the present and into the future via echoes, influences, revisions, and innovations in contemporary (counter-)cultures. In P. B. Shelley’s words, this conference wishes to explore “the many-voiced echoes” of Romanticisms and the multitudinous reanimations that highlight their continued relevance in contemporary (counter-)cultures.
Keynote speakers:
Elizabeth Bohls (University of Oregon):
“Witnessing Distant Suffering: Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza and Romantic Afterlife”
Eric Eisner (George Mason University):
“Romanticism in Contemporary American Literature”
Free registration on Eventbrite. A detailed schedule of the conference can be found here. For further questions please contact: enit.steiner@unil.ch. We look forward to meeting you virtually.
Organisers: Enit K Steiner, Rachel Falconer, Philip Lindholm, Patrick Vincent.