CfP Round-Up

      Comments Off on CfP Round-Up

Since there are a whole load of deadlines coming up in the next few weeks, I thought it’d be useful to put together a list of conferences currently seeking papers, with links to the full CfPs  These are given in deadline order (not long for BSECS now…):

BSECS 2014: Pleasures and Entertainments, St Hugh’s College Oxford, 8-10 January 2014 – Deadline 20th October.

NASSR 2014: Romantic Organizations, Washington D.C., 10-13 July 2013 – Deadline for special sessions 1 November, for abstracts 17 January 2014.

Romantic Locations (BARS Early Career and Postgraduate Conference), Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, 19-21 March 2014 – Deadline 15th November.

Ann Radcliffe at 250: Gothic and Romantic Imaginations, University of Sheffield, 27-29 June 2014 – Deadline 30th November.

Coleridge Summer Conference, Cannington, 28 July-1 August 2014 – Deadline 30th November.

Romantic Connections, University of Tokyo, 13-15 June 2014 – Deadline 30th November.

John Keats and his Circle, Keats House, Hampstead, London, 2-4 May 2014 – Deadline 1st December.

Romanticism and Self-Destruction, University of Bristol, 9 May 2014 – Deadline 1st December.

BSLS Conference 2014,  University of Surrey, Guildford, 10-12 April 2014 – Deadline 6th December.

John Thelwall Society Conference: John Thelwall at 250: Medicine, Literature, and Reform in London, ca. 1764-1834, University of Notre Dame London Centre, 25-27 July 2014 – Deadline 1 February 2014.

Looks like next year’s going to be a pretty busy one.

I’m sure I’ve missed some things, so if you’re holding an event you’d like added to this list, please leave a comment or drop me an email on mjrs3@cantab.net.

British Society for Literature and Science Conference 2014

      Comments Off on British Society for Literature and Science Conference 2014

The British Society for Literature and Science’s 2014 Conference will take place at the University of Surrey, Guildford between the 10th and the 12th of April.  Keynote speakers will include Professor Mary Orr (University of Southampton) and Professor Bernard Lightman (York University, Toronto).  The Call for Papers and further details can be found here.  Proposals of no more than 250 words, together with the name and institutional affiliation of the speaker, should be sent in the body of messages (not in attachments) to Gregory Tate (g.tate@surrey.ac.uk).  The closing date for submissions is Friday 6 December 2013.

Romanticism and Self-Destruction

      Comments Off on Romanticism and Self-Destruction

The University of Bristol’s Centre for Romantic and Victorian Studies will be holding a one-day conference on Romanticism and Self-Destruction on May 9th next year, with plenary talks by Andrew Bennett and Caroline Franklin.  The Call for Papers can be found on the conference website; 250-word proposals should be emailed to the conference organisers, Stephanie Codsi and Jimmy Packham, at romselfdestruct@gmail.com by December 1st.

Romantic Locations

      Comments Off on Romantic Locations

Romantic Locations, BARS’ Early Career and Postgraduate Conference for 2014, will take place between the 19th and the 21st of March at the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, a stone’s throw from Dove Cottage.  The full Call for Papers can be found in a dedicated section on the main BARS site; this will be updated with further information on accommodation, food and travel arrangements as these are confirmed.  We hope you’ll consider submitting an abstract; the conference email address is romanticlocations@gmail.com and the deadline for abstracts is November 15th.

Limbo…

      Comments Off on Limbo…

The sole true Something—This! In Limbo’s Den
It frightens Ghosts, as here Ghosts frighten men.
Thence crossed unseized—and shall some fated hour
Be pulverised by Demogorgon’s power
And given as poison to annihilate souls—
Even now it shrinks them—they shrink in as Moles
(Nature’s mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground)
Creep back from Light—then listen for its sound;—
See but to dread, and dread they know not why—
The natural alien of their negative eye.

’Tis a strange place, this Limbo!—not a Place,
Yet name it so;—where Time and weary Space
Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing,
Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;—
Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands
Barren and soundless as the measuring sands,
Not marked by flit of Shades,—unmeaning they
As moonlight on the dial of the day!
But that is lovely—looks like Human Time,—
An Old Man with a steady look sublime,
That stops his earthly task to watch the skies;
But he is blind—a Statue hath such eyes;—
Yet having moonward turned his face by chance,
Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,
With scant white hairs, with foretop bald and high,
He gazes still,—his eyeless face all eye;—
As ’twere an organ full of silent sight,
His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light!
Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb—
He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him!
No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,
Walled round, and made a spirit-jail secure,
By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all,
Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral.
A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,
Yet that is but a Purgatory curse;
Hell knows a fear far worse,
A fear—a future state;—’tis positive Negation!

STC