An International Conference | Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan | 17–19 July 2027
We are pleased to announce an international conference on ‘Romanticism and the Sense of Place’, to be held at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan in July 2027.
The conference invites papers exploring the diverse relationships between Romanticism and place in Britain, Europe, North America, Asia and beyond. We understand ‘sense of place’ broadly, encompassing not only attachment and belonging but also travel, displacement, memory, loss, contestation, and the making and unmaking of place.
We welcome papers on individual writers and works, as well as comparative, interdisciplinary, transnational and global approaches. Topics might include, but are not limited to:
- Romanticism, landscapes and the sense of place
- Locality, regional identity and rural communities
- Mobility, wandering, travel, tourism and the discovery or invention of place
- Cities, urbanisation and metropolitan spaces
- Enclosure, land ownership and displacement
- Nature, ecology and environmental change
- Exile, place, memory and nostalgia
- Home, dwelling and domestic experiences of place
- Geographies of belonging and exclusion
- Empire, colonialism, settlement and the making and unmaking of place
- Revisiting Orientalism and Romantic geographies of cultural encounter
- Nation, nationalism, borders and contested territories
- Maps, cartography, topography and geographical knowledge in the Romantic era
We particularly welcome papers on the movement, reception and transformation of Romantic ideas across cultures, and also on the ways in which Romanticism may look different when viewed from beyond its European contexts.
Plenary speakers include:
Tara Lee (University of Hong Kong)
Chris Murray (Monash University)
Nahoko Miyamoto Alvey (University of Tokyo)
John Strachan (Bath Spa University)
Convenors:
Kaz Oishi (University of Tokyo)
Saeko Yoshikawa (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies)
Jane Moore (Cardiff University)
with John Strachan (Bath Spa University)
Please also see the attached poster regarding the event.
Please submit a 300-word proposal to romanticregenerations@gmail.com by 28 February 2027.
For further information and queries, please contact romanticregenerations@gmail.com
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Kaz Oishi and John Strachan