{"id":5781,"date":"2025-01-31T11:42:28","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T11:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=5781"},"modified":"2025-01-31T11:42:28","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T11:42:28","slug":"cfp-nineteenth-century-legacies-organised-by-bars-bavs-nineteenth-century-matters-fellow-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=5781","title":{"rendered":"CfP: Nineteenth-Century Legacies (organised by BARS\/BAVS Nineteenth-Century Matters Fellow 2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In June 2025, Royal Holloway, University of London, in collaboration with the British  Association of Victorian Studies and the British Association of Romantic Studies, will host an  in-person research day on Tuesday 3<\/strong>rd <\/sup><\/strong>June <\/strong>examining realisms across literary, artistic,  theatrical, and critical forms, and considering the continuing influence of nineteenth-century  thought on our current moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presentations will be held during the morning in which delegates present 15-minute papers  attending to nineteenth-century realisms (broadly conceived), followed by an afternoon  discussion-based roundtable, structured around the topic: \u201cManaging Difficult Legacies\u201d.  Please see below for the full CFP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CFP: Nineteenth-Century Legacies <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have undertaken to discourse here for a little on Great Men, their manner of\u00a0appearance in our world\u2019s business, how they have shaped themselves in the world\u2019s\u00a0 history, what ideas men formed of them, what work they did; – on Heroes, namely,\u00a0 and on their reception and performance what I call Hero-worship and the Heroic in\u00a0 human affairs. Too evidently this is a large topic; deserving quite other treatment than\u00a0 we can expect to give it at present. A large topic; indeed, an illimitable one; wide as\u00a0 Universal History itself. For, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man\u00a0has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have\u00a0 worked here.\u00a0<\/p>

Thomas Carlyle,\u00a0On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our\u00a0 contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot. All the more\u00a0sacred is the task of the artist when he undertakes to paint the life of the People.\u00a0Falsification here is far more pernicious than in the more artificial aspects of life. It is\u00a0 not so very serious that we should have false ideas about evanescent fashions –\u00a0about the manners and conversation of beaux and duchesses; but it is serious that\u00a0 our sympathy with the perennial joys and struggles, the toil, the tragedy, and the humour in the life of our more heavily-laden fellow-men, should be perverted, and\u00a0turned towards a false object instead of the true one.\u00a0<\/p>

George Eliot, \u201cThe Natural History of German Life\u201d.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Human beings are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They\u00a0 have a value which is independent of any temporal processes\u2014which is eternal, and\u00a0 must be felt for its own sake\u00a0<\/p>

Lytton Strachey,\u00a0Eminent Victorians<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cThe Natural History of German Life\u201d, George Eliot condemns contemporaneous social  novels which claim to \u201crepresent the people as they are\u201d while tending to idealise their  presentations of rural and working-class life. Eliot understood the far-reaching implications of  realist representation. In misrepresenting their subjects, these writers direct the sympathy of  their audience towards a false object which, as Eliot sees it, undermines the moral  imperative of their work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way the real is constructed across literary, artistic, social, and political discourses is  instructive. Realism is a mode of aesthetic presentation which claims to correspond with real  life, designed to strike the reader or viewer as realistic or lifelike through the deployment of  certain conventions and strategies. The ways in which authors, artists, and thinkers use  these techniques to convince their audience that their work is correspondent with real life  can be revealing in how they see themselves, others, their own historical moment, their  place in the wider world, and beyond. By way of example, The Scottish National Portrait  Gallery in Edinburgh was championed by Thomas Carlyle who insisted that \u201cthe History of  the World [ . . .] was the Biography of Great Men\u201d. Those who were deemed to have  contributed significantly to Scotland and the wider world are celebrated in William Brassey  Hole\u2019s processional frieze which encircles the building\u2019s Great Hall. It presents a calculated  version of Scotland\u2019s past, which purports to be true and, by extension, real to observers in  the nineteenth century and through to our current moment. The policies, ideas, and images  which prop up these versions of reality created within nineteenth-century cultural, social, and  political discourses continue to resonate today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of this research day is to examine nineteenth-century realist presentations and\u00a0 consider their present-day implications. Nineteenth-century ideas continue to feature within\u00a0 the twenty-first century consciousness. During the morning, panellists will present 15-minute\u00a0 papers followed by Q&As. These presentations will help lay the foundation for a discussion based roundtable event held during the afternoon, where participants will be encouraged to\u00a0 reflect upon how nineteenth-century ideas, understandings, and problems raised during the\u00a0morning presentations continue to influence university structures and the courses they\u00a0 deliver, institutions in the GLAM sector, as well as shaping contemporary cultural and\u00a0 political discourses.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We invite contributions that attend to nineteenth-century realisms across literary, artistic,  theatrical, architectural, and critical forms, which pursue new directions that demonstrate the  capaciousness of the form, and its scope for providing insight into, or renegotiating,  perceptions of historical, cultural, or social moments.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals for 15-minute paper which  consider nineteenth-century realisms. Papers may address, but are not limited to: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Realism: literary, artistic, theatrical <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Subjectivity, the primacy of the individual <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– \u2018Otherness\u2019 and othering <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Journalism and print culture <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Authors and Artists <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Cultural memory and the recent past <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Religion <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Philanthropists, philosophers, activists, and innovators  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Empire and colonialism <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Institutions: Workhouses, galleries, libraries, museums, how they were founded, and  by whom. The intellectual ideas underpinning them and whether they have survived  into the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Education: the Education Act (1870), National schools, Sunday schools, Ragged  schools, Workers\u2019 Educational Association, YMCA lectures, technical colleges,  women\u2019s education, curricula, pedagogy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Events: The Napoleonic wars, the Acts of Union (1801), the Peterloo Massacre, the  Great Reform Act (1832), abolishment of Slavery in the British Empire (1838),  Chartism, the Paris Commune. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Technological Developments: development of the railway, development of  photography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Science: Natural history, Darwinism, eugenic thought, phrenology <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please send proposals of no more than 300 words, and a biographical note of no more than 100 words to Amy Waterson (amy.waterson@rhul.ac.uk<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deadline: 15<\/strong>th <\/sup><\/strong>March 2025 <\/strong>Decisions: 31<\/strong>st <\/sup><\/strong>March 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In June 2025, Royal Holloway, University of London, in collaboration with the British  Association of Victorian Studies and the British Association of Romantic Studies, will host an  in-person research day… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5781"}],"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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5782,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5781\/revisions\/5782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}