{"id":1002,"date":"2015-12-21T19:03:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T19:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2015-12-21T19:03:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T19:03:22","slug":"conference-report-marilyn-butler-and-the-war-of-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=1002","title":{"rendered":"Conference Report: ‘Marilyn Butler and the War of Ideas’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Grace Harvey (University of Lincoln)<\/a> for contributing to the BARS Blog the report below, detailing her experience of the warm and welcoming ‘Marilyn Butler and the War of Ideas’ conference held at Chawton a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 Further details of the conference can be found on the Chawton House Library site<\/a> and via the Chawton House Library Facebook group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Marylin-Butler-reduced\"<\/a>

Marilyn Butler<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Marilyn Butler and the War of Ideas: A Commemorative Conference’ was held on the 11th and 12th of December at Chawton House.\u00a0 Organised by Gillian Dow and Linda Bree, the two days featured unrivalled discussions and research that celebrated the life and work of Marilyn Butler.<\/p>\n

The first day was opened by James Chandler (University of Chicago), whose keynote, \u2018Edgeworth and Austen (and Butler)\u2019, spoke warmly of his friendship with Butler and drew attention to the sheer extent of her career and influence.\u00a0 His consideration of slavery, money, and Butler\u2019s discussions of Austen, Edgeworth and Smith, amongst others, effortlessly encapsulated the convivial and celebratory tone of the conference.<\/p>\n

The first panel was an opening discussion that, like Chandler\u2019s keynote, was peppered with personal remarks about Butler in addition to discussions of work inspired by and produced in response to Butler\u2019s.\u00a0 Janet Todd (University of Cambridge) spoke of the male-authored memoirs of Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft in her paper, \u2018Male Memory, female subject: the case of Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft\u2019.\u00a0 Following this, Cora Kaplan (Queen Mary, University of London and Southampton) discussed how Butler\u2019s work encourages readers to feature a wide variety of obscure and disparate individuals in her paper \u2018War of Ideas: Butler and Feminism at two fin-de si\u00e8cle\u2019.\u00a0 Clara Tuite\u2019s (University of Melbourne) \u2018Austenian Badlands and the War of Ideas\u2019 discussed the negotiation of politics and history through form, and Ros Ballaster (University of Oxford) concluded the opening discussion with a consideration of the place of the aesthetic in feminist recovery, in her paper \u2018Passing Judgement: the place of the aesthetic in feminist literary history\u2019.<\/p>\n

Moving into the afternoon, the rest of the conference programme entailed the bittersweet demands of parallel panels, but the inevitable gaps in the following report have been filled by numerous scholars using the #MBWarofIdeas<\/a> Twitter hashtag.\u00a0 The first session I attended was opened by Jacqueline Labbe\u2019s (University of Sheffleld) \u2018The Editor and Mrs Smith: Who is She?\u2019.\u00a0 Here, Labbe queried how we might position Smith as a novelist and as a poet, as well as the complex relationship between author and narrator, and questioned the challenges this poses to readers.\u00a0 Following on from this, Amy Culley (University of Lincoln) and Anna Fitzer (University of Hull) spoke of their joint endeavours in editing women\u2019s writing.\u00a0 In their paper \u2018Editing Women\u2019s Writing 1670-1840: Textual Editing and Women\u2019s Literary History\u2019, they presented the challenges and concerns editors face when approaching documentary evidence, giving a survey of the field drawing on their forthcoming co-edited collection on the subject.<\/p>\n

After a quick tea break, the second parallel session commenced.\u00a0 Jane Spencer (University of Exeter) begun the panel I attended with, \u2018Learned pigs: animal imagery in radical culture of the 1790s\u2019.\u00a0 Spencer\u2019s discussion of the politicised swine demonstrated how these symbols pertain to far-reaching implications.\u00a0 Mary Fairclough (University of York) started to query the lightning bolt moment we all so fondly associate with cinematic appropriations of Frankenstein<\/em> in her paper \u2018Frankenstein, Electricity and Chemistry\u2019.\u00a0 Here, Fairclough traced references to science to surgeons William Lawrence and John Abernathy in order to insist that we should not reduce Shelley\u2019s text to a \u201cgalvanic shockfest\u201d.\u00a0 In the final paper of this panel, Michael Rossington (University of Newcastle) drew attention to Percy Shelley\u2019s recently resurfaced poetry in his paper \u2018Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things: a newly recovered Shelley poem and its contents\u2019.\u00a0 In addition to providing an overview of how we might position this within Shelley\u2019s own literary works, Rossington was keen to consider how this text might suggest new ways in which we can illuminate Shelley\u2019s personal and political positions.<\/p>\n

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\"Linda<\/a>

Linda Bree, with Mapping Mythologies<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Concluding the day\u2019s celebrations, the final session was a warm reflection on Butler as editor and featured the launch of Mapping Mythologies<\/em><\/a>, Butler\u2019s last major work.\u00a0 Josie Dixon spoke of Marilyn\u2019s legacy as series editor (for Cambridge University Press’s Studies in Romanticism) and more generally championed her commitment to providing rich and accessible tools for the aspiring scholar.\u00a0 Heather Glen shared her intimate and personal memories of Butler, and suggested how her character shaped her work as much as her ideas.\u00a0 She offered a unique insight into Butler\u2019s writing processes and spoke of the processes that she herself undertook in editing Butler\u2019s final work.\u00a0 David Butler closed the session with wit and affection, concluding the first day with as much warmth as that with which it opened.<\/p>\n

Fuelled by both an excellent day of convivial discussion and a well-earned glass of wine, we were all promptly ushered into dinner where these conversations continued.\u00a0 Post-dinner entertainment was generously provided by undergraduate musicians from the University of Southampton, led by Professor David Owen Norris and featuring a fine Edgeworthian interlude from Gillian Dow.<\/p>\n

Moving into the second day, Anthony Mandal (Cardiff University) opened the first of the parallel sessions with his thoughts on gender and authorship.\u00a0 In his paper \u2018The Business of Ideas: Women\u2019s Fiction and the Romantic Literary Marketplace\u2019, Mandal drew attention to \u2018Mrs Meeke\u2019 and the Minerva Press to suggest how writers employed and exploited new markets for literature.\u00a0 Serena Baiesi (University of Bologna) continued to discuss how we might position Edgeworth\u2019s fiction following Butler\u2019s seminal editions in \u2018Rewriting the Genre of \u2018Romances of Real Life\u2019: Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen\u2019.\u00a0 In the final paper of this session, \u2018Illegitimacy and the Haunting of Jane Austen\u2019s Novels\u2019, Isobel Armstrong (Birkbeck, University of London) discussed the role of illegitimacy in the novels of Jane Austen and traced features of Emma<\/em> back to King Lear<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Following a brief tea break, I now took my own position at the helm in the second session of the day.\u00a0 Following Chris Ewers\u2019s (Independent) stimulating discussion of topography in the work of Jane Austen and Robert Bage, \u2018”Anticipating” Austen: Hermsprong<\/em> and the Geography, of “3 or 4 families in a Country Village”\u2019, I gave my paper, \u2018Man as He is Not: ReDefining and ReAligning Robert Bage\u2019.\u00a0 Ian Haywood (University of Roehampton) rounded this session off with his thoughts on \u2018Arts for the People in a Revolutionary Decade: Jacobinism and the Poet\u2019s Gallery\u2019.\u00a0 In the closing remarks of the panel, Haywood discussed the complex systems of visual culture, and alluded to the wider implications of these fascinating prints.<\/p>\n

Moving into the final parallel session of the day, Fiona Price (University of Chichester) spoke passionately of the works of Jane West.\u00a0 In \u2018Romantic Nationalism and the Sublime Church: Jane West\u2019s Historical Fiction\u2019, Price discussed how West inverts and subverts political affiliation in response to the 1790s’ radical politics. Michael Falk (University of Kent) discussed how readers might employ Butler to unique ends in his paper, \u2018Butler\u2019s Sociology\u2019.\u00a0 Using the work of Amelia Opie as a \u2018case-study\u2019, Falk injected laughter and wit into his discussion of Butler\u2019s legacy, and suggested how her appropriation of Bourdieu is a model for comparative work.\u00a0 Gary Farnell (University of Winchester) provided the final paper of this session and suggested how Butler\u2019s work remains independent in schools of thoughts in his discussion of \u2018Marilyn Butler\u2019s Open Literary History\u2019.<\/p>\n

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\"Coleman<\/a>

Deirdre Coleman, Jon Mee and Nigel Leask<\/p><\/div>\n

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The two excellent days concluded in brief remarks in the closing discussion.\u00a0 First to the lectern was Mark Philp (University of Warwick), who in his paper \u2018Intimate Friends in the 1790s\u2019 called on William Godwin\u2019s diary to open discussions of the prevalence, or indeed lack thereof, of women in intellectual and radical circles.\u00a0 Nigel Leask\u2019s (University of Glasgow) brief discussion, \u2018Marilyn Butler and Devolutionary Romanticism\u2019, paid tribute to those areas of Butler\u2019s work that considered diverse communities of writing.\u00a0 Deirdre Coleman (University of Melbourne) shared her experiences of receiving feedback from Butler throughout \u2018Marilyn Butler and \u2018the mind\u2019s eye\u2019 of the author\u2019, and reminded all of Butler\u2019s preference for Romanticism without Wordsworth.\u00a0 Jon Mee (University of York) rounded this final session off with his short paper \u2018Transpennine Enlightenment: Power and Knowledge in the North\u2019.\u00a0 During this brief discussion, Mee pointed to the north of England as a hothouse for improvement and cited the spreading literary and philosophical societies as examples of this, before offering concluding thoughts on women\u2019s membership.<\/p>\n

As with almost all of the previous sessions, these final remarks paid homage to Marilyn Butler\u2019s personal and professional legacy, and this fabulous two-day conference was characterised by a warmth and intimacy that rarely features in academic conferences.\u00a0 Many thanks indeed to Gillian and Linda for organising such a wonderful celebration!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Grace Harvey (University of Lincoln) for contributing to the BARS Blog the report below, detailing her experience of the warm and welcoming ‘Marilyn Butler and the War… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1011,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}