{"id":6038,"date":"2025-05-28T15:43:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T15:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=6038"},"modified":"2025-05-28T15:43:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T15:43:33","slug":"call-for-contributions-literature-multilingualism-and-the-four-nations-1800-1900","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=6038","title":{"rendered":"Call for Contributions: Literature, Multilingualism, and the Four Nations, 1800-1900"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are inviting proposals for contributions to an edited book, provisionally titled Literature, Multilingualism, and the Four Nations, 1800-1900<\/em>, which builds on the work that we started during the AHRC-funded research network \u2018Victorian Literary Languages\u2019. The network hosted three workshops in 2022 and 2023<\/a> and is the basis for a special issue of 19 <\/em>on \u2018Nineteenth-Century Literary Languages\u2019  (available here<\/a>!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed volume aims to examine the intersection between literary culture and multilingualism from a distinctive four nations perspective. We hope that it will shed new light on the ways in which literature reflected and shaped the relationship between Britain\u2019s indigenous languages; late modern English and its many variants, accents, and dialects; and the foreign languages that were spoken and heard, written and read, and taught and learnt in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are inviting proposals for essays of approximately 9,000 words by scholars at any stage in their career and are keen to provide a platform for new and emerging critical voices.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please see below for further details on the topics and approaches we are specifically looking to include. If your research is not captured by the suggested topics but would contribute to the broader aims we identify, please do not hesitate to get in touch!<\/strong>We also welcome informal inquiries about possible contributions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To express your interest in contributing an essay, please send your proposal of approximately 400 words to <\/strong>viclitlang@gmail.com<\/a><\/u><\/strong> by 31 July. We anticipate that full chapters will be due toward the end of summer 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please share this email with anyone in your networks, including graduate students, who may be interested.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With many thanks and best wishes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karin Koehler (k.koehler@bangor.ac.uk<\/a>) and Greg Tate (gpt4@st-andrews.ac.uk<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1.  Literature, Language and National Identity:<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    We are looking for essays that address how nineteenth-century literature in English (and any of its variants), Irish, Gaelic, Scots, or Welsh participated in the linguistic construction of national identity, with emphasis on the relationship between the four constituent nations and \u2018Britishness\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n