News from Other Organizations

INCS Essay Prize Call for Submissions

Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies invites nominations for its sixth annual essay prize. The $500 prize recognizes excellence in interdisciplinary scholarship on any nineteenth-century topic or world region. We encourage members of INCS to submit or nominate an essay written by a current member of INCS and published in a book or journal dated 2008. The winner will be announced at the 2009 INCS Conference, "The Pursuit of Happiness," 24-26 April at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.

Please send three paper copies of the nominated essay to Professor Alexandra Wettlaufer, Department of French and Italian, 1 University Station B7600, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 no later than 1 March 2009. For more details about the essay competition, the conference, or the organization, we invite you visit the INCS website.

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CFPs for the Dickens Society at MLA

The Dickens Society will sponsor two panels at the 2009 in Philadelphia. Submit materials directly to the appropriate panel organizer.

1. Dickens and Play. Papers exploring the function, meaning, and value of play in all of its many forms in Dickens's writings. Abstract and brief c.v. by 6 Mar.; Matthew Kaiser (mkaiser@fas.harvard.edu).
2. Victorian Rituals. Significance of ritual and ceremony in Victorian life, literature, visual and performance art. Consider such family and social practices broadly--tea service, meals, paying calls, courtship, mourning. etc. Abstract (250 words) and brief c.v. to Robert Lougy, (rxl1@psu.edu) by 6 March.

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CFP: A Return to Cookson Country

I am editing a collection of essays on 20th-century British novelist Catherine Cookson. Ashgate Press has solicited a first read, and Kathleen Jones, Cookson's biographer, has agreed to write the Preface. There is space for one more essay. If interested, please send a 2 page, double-spaced abstract and brief vita ASAP to Julie Taddeo at taddeo@mail.umd.edu.

The original CFP is as follows:

Hailed as the "Dickens of the North," Catherine Cookson returned time and time again to the Victorian past, writing what she called the "social history" of the area around the River Tyne in her 100-plus novels. In a writing career that spanned the aftermath of World War II, the rise of the welfare state, second-wave feminism and sexual revolution, and Thatcher's booming Heritage Industry, Cookson used the setting of England's industrial northeast to explore class and gender conflict, and the effects of poverty, illegitimacy, and violence on its men and women. Almost ten years after her death, fans on Cookson websites still claim that her stories of women overcoming hardships saved their lives, and the museum and trails that make up "Cookson Country," luring thousands of tourists a year, attest to her legacy as a champion of women and the working class in England. Yet despite two adoring biographies and an occasional subchapter in literary anthologies, Cookson remains sadly neglected by academics. Romance scholars typically ignore Cookson, who herself resisted the label of romance novelist in favor of social historian, while historians are too eager to discredit the accuracy of her largely Victorian settings and plots. It is time to revisit Cookson Country and assess Cookson's legacy as a publishing phenomenon.

This call for papers for an academic volume on Cookson welcomes essays from any disciplinary or theoretical perspective. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Cookson as a distinctly "British" novelist
• Representations of femininity, masculinity, and sexuality, especially homosexuality and lesbianism, in Cookson's novels and life
• Cookson Country and the Heritage Industry (includes the museum, trails, on-line websites by and for fans, and TV movie versions of her novels)
• Re-evaluations of her texts: Feminist? Conservative? Subversive?
• Historical fiction or romance--do such labels really matter?
• Re-imagining Victorianism
• Class and gender politics in the historical/romance novel

Detailed abstract and a short CV are due by February 15, 2008. Please send in electronic format as Word attachment to taddeo@mail.umd.edu. Thank you!

Dr. Julie Taddeo
Visiting Associate Professor of History
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

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CALL FOR PAPERS: "MUSIC AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITES" MLA 2009

The William Morris Society in the United States will hold two sessions at the 2009 Modern Language Association Convention in Philadelphia. One session, a sequel to "William Morris's Early Friends and Associates" held at the 2008 MLA convention, will be on "William Morris's Later Associates." The speakers are: Eleonora Sasso (Pescara, Italy), "William Morris, Ford Madox Ford and the Celebration of Simplicity"; Paul Acker (St. Louis University), "Charles Fairfax Murray's Collaboration with William Morris"; Jude Nixon (Oakland University), "Sons of Odin: Carlyle, Morris, Watts-Dunton--Icelandic Mythology and Antiscrape"; and Zachary Weir (Miami University), "Thomas Wardle's 'Wild Silks of India': Morris and Imperial Design."

We invite proposals for a second session: "Music and the Pre-Raphaelites: Sound, Lyric and Harmony," to consider the importance of music and other auditory phenomena in the lives and work of Pre-Raphaelite artists and writers. Please send one-page abstracts by 15 March 2009 to Florence Boos, florence-boos@uiowa.edu

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CFP: Nineteenth-Century British Literature & Culture panels at PAMLA

Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Conference
November 6-7, 2009
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, California

"Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Culture."

Paper proposals sought for PAMLA's regular-session panel on nineteenth-century British literature and culture. Proposals may address any area of Romantic/Regency and Victorian literature and culture. Please include the following three items in your message to session chair Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. at ajdrake-at-ajdrake.com:

1. your full curriculum vitae
2. a crisp (50-word maximum) summary of the full abstract
3. a carefully-reasoned abstract of 250-500 words (inline or attachment) that both outlines your project and addresses its significance with regard to the field of C19 British studies.

Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2009. Please include your name and the phrase "PAMLA Abstract" in message subject line. All submissions will be acknowledged promptly.

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The Green Nineteenth Century
30th ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY STUDIES ASSOCIATION
Milwaukee, Wisconsin March 26-28, 2009

Papers and panels will address aspects of "green" studies in the long nineteenth century, including, but not limited to "ecocriticism" in nineteenth-century studies; history of ecological science, environmental ethics, and environmentalist activism; nineteenth-century studies and animal welfare; ecofeminist philosophy and gender politics; contemporary discourses on nature; nineteenth-century ecotourism; Romantic "ecopoetics" and the politics of nature; "green" program music and tone poems; sustainability, including sustainable architecture and interior design; landscape painting and nature imagery; dramatic scenery; color associations and color theories; gardening and farming; conservation movements; and the idea of the "natural" or "unnatural." Also included are papers on Irish studies, earth-centered religions, the idea of the "new," and other understandings of "green" studies in the nineteenth century.

For more information, please follow the NCSA link: http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/ncsa/

If you have questions, please contact Christine Roth, Program Chair, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh: roth@uwosh.edu

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Call for Manuscripts: Bucknell University Press

In 2009, Bucknell University Press is celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday and the 150th anniversary of The Origin of the Species by welcoming manuscripts, either critical essay collections or monographs, on Darwin and the humanities and social sciences. Prospective authors and editors are asked to send inquiries and/or a proposal by July 2009 to the Director, Greg Clingham, at University Press, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837, or clingham@bucknell.edu. Please visit our website for more information about the press: www.bucknell.edu/universitypress.

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CFP: Victorian Poetry issue on Victorian Prosody

"What form is best for poems?" asks Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her verse-novel Aurora Leigh. Recent years have shown a growing number of scholars interested in investigating the cultural, political, historical, and aesthetic significance of Victorian prosody. For a special issue of Victorian Poetry, we invite papers that focus on Victorian approaches toward the study of English prosody as a discourse distinct from both Classical and Romantic prosody. The subject of prosody touches on Victorian concerns about Englishness, education, music, linguistics, neurology, physiology, mathematics, geology, philosophy, and even military science; prosody is at once inter-disciplinary and attempts, again and again, to re-define the very concepts of "discipline" and even "measure."

For this special issue of Victorian Poetry, the editors seek manuscripts that offer new perspectives as well as innovative methodologies for a better understanding of Victorian prosody. We encourage papers to explore the relationship between poetry and prosody, and as such broaden our perspective of poetic form in the Victorian era.

The submission process for this special issue is two-tiered: By April 20, 2009 please submit a 500-800 word proposal indicating your intention to submit a full-length (6,000-7,000 words) essay. Full-length essays will be due December 15, 2009. Submissions should be sent to Yisrael Levin (University of Victoria) and Meredith Martin (Princeton University) by email: mm4@princeton.edu

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CFP: The 14th Annual Dickens Society Symposium
Providence College, Providence, RI
6-9 August 2009

The Dickens Society's fourteenth annual symposium, business meeting and dinner will be held at Providence College the weekend of August 6-9, 2009. Hotel accommodations will be in downtown Providence, RI, with shuttle service conveying delegates to and from the college, which is located in Providence's historic Smith Hill neighborhood.

Paper proposals on any aspect of Dickens and his works are invited. Final papers should be readable in 20 minutes. Please send proposals (1-2 pages) to Dr. Elizabeth Bridgham, Department of English, Providence College, 549 River Ave., Providence, RI 02918, U.S.A., or electronically to bridgham@providence.edu no later than 31 March 2009. Further symposium information and updates are available from the Dickens Quarterly website and from the addresses above.

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The Gladstone Bicentenary International Conference

In July 2009 the Centre for Victorian Studies at the University of Chester, in association with St Deiniol's Library, Hawarden, will host an international conference to mark the bicentenary of the birth of William Ewart Gladstone (on 29 December 1809 in Rodney Street, Liverpool). The conference, which complements a similar international event held at Chester in 1998 to mark the centenary of Gladstone's death, will provide scholars with an opportunity to explore, within a broad multi-disciplinary framework, a variety of aspects of Gladstone's life and work, both public and private, bringing together political and cultural themes in an atmosphere of debate and cross-fertilization.

Speakers will include Asa Briggs, David Bebbington (Stirling), Paul Bew (Queen's, Belfast), Eugenio Biagini (Robinson, Cambridge), Jonathan Conlin (Southampton), C. Brad Faught (Toronto), Richard Gaunt (Nottingham), Lawrence Goldman (St Peter's, Oxford), Joseph Meisel (New York), Denis Paz (North Texas), Roland Quinault (London Metropolitan), Deryck Schreuder (Sydney), Frank Turner (Yale) and Ruth Clayton Windscheffel (St Hilda's, Oxford).

For a program, booking form, or conference flyer, please see the conference's website.

CFP: Special section on Victorian Scotland

Victorians Institute Journal (VIJ) welcomes submissions for a special section titled "Victorian Scotland" to be published in Volume 37 (2009). We are happy to consider essays, edited texts, reviews, and other material related to the experience of Scotland during the reign of Queen Victoria--including essays on Scottish periodicals. While essays relating to authors and figures long represented in the canon of English literature are welcome, we especially look forward to receiving news of doings North of the Tweed which may be less familiar.

Please query for additional information.

VIJ (www.vcu.edu/vij) is a refereed scholarly annual published by the Victorians Institute, and edited by David Latané (Virginia Commonwealth University) and Deborah Denenholz Morse (College of William and Mary). Submissions should be in MLA format, and submitted in both hardcopy and electronic form (Word attachments preferred) to Editors, Victorians Institute Journal / Department of English / Box 842005 / VCU / Richmond, VA 23284-2005. E-mail: vij@vcu.edu. Deadline: 1 August 2009.

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Call for Essays: Transatlantic Exchanges from the Anglo-American War to the Emancipation Proclamation (c. 1783-1863)

A new and burgeoning field of interdisciplinary investigation,transatlantic scholarship contextualizes its objects of study in relation to exchanges, interactions, and negotiations that occurred between and among authors and other artists hailing from both sides of the Atlantic. As a result, transatlantic research calls into question established disciplinary boundaries that have long functioned to segregate various national or cultural literatures and art forms, challenging as well the traditional academic emphasis upon periodization and canonization.

For a volume tentatively titled "Transatlantic Exchanges from the Anglo-American War to the Emancipation Proclamation," we invite essay submissions on any aspect of transatlantic literatures from the period circa 1783-1863. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• migration and settlement
• the Atlantic slave trade and transatlantic abolition movement
• comparative analyses of different colonial sites
• literary and other cultural exchanges across the Atlantic
• European attitudes towards the Americas, and vice versa
• depictions of transatlantic conflicts, from the Seven Years' War forward
• theorizing the transatlantic

The volume will be considered by Ashgate, where it will undergo a full peer-review, so we ask submitters to note that, for documentation, Ashgate prefers footnotes containing bibliographical information, roughly in a variant of MLA note style; details of Ashgate's house style are provided online at http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/Authors/h_author_guidelines.pdf

Please send submissions of 6000-7000 words (including all notes) by *1 October 2009* as attachment in Word or WordPerfect to both editors, Julia M. Wright (julia.wright@dal.ca) and Kevin Hutchings (hutchink@unbc.ca). Those interested in submitting to the book series, Ashgate Series in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Studies, should contact Ann Donahue (adonahue@ashgate.com).

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CFP: Special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies on Steampunk, Science, and (Neo)Victorian Technologies

The peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal Neo-Victorian Studies invites papers and/or abstracts for a 2009 special issue on neo-Victorianism's engagement with science and new/old technologies, especially as articulated through the genre of Steampunk. As a lifestyle, aesthetic and literary movement, Steampunk can be both the act of modding your laptop to look like and function as a Victorian artefact and an act of (re-)imagining a London in which Charles Babbage's analytical engine was realised. Steampunk includes applications of nineteenth-century aesthetics to contemporary objects; speculative extensions of technologies that actually existed; and the anachronistic importation of contemporary science into fictionalised pasts and projected futures. In all cases, Steampunk blurs boundaries: between centuries, between technologies, and between "those" Victorians and "us" neo-Victorians. This special issue will explore why particular scientific and technological developments are revisited at particular historical moments and trace Steampunk's importance to neo-Victorianism, as well as its wider cultural implications.

Deadline for submission of completed papers: 1 June 2009.

Articles and/or creative pieces between 6000-8000 words should be submitted by email to the guest editors Rachel A. Bowser (rbowser_at_gmail.com) and Brian Croxall (brian.croxall_at_gmail.com), with a further copy to the General Editor, Marie-Luise Kohlke (neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk). For submission guidelines, please consult the journal website at http://www.neovictorianstudies.com/

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CFP: Victorian Network, a new postgraduate journal

Victorian Network is a new online journal dedicated to publishing and promoting the best postgraduate work in Victorian Studies. The journal is guest edited by established scholars in the field and peer-reviewed by other doctoral students.

Two types of submissions are now accepted for the first issue. We are seeking essays of no longer than 7000 words which engage with the topic of the first issue, "The British Empire and Victorian Literature and Culture." Topics might include but are not limited to:

• Imperial historiography and travel writing
• Colonialism and notions of gender, race and sexuality
• The circulation of people, goods, narratives and ideas in the British Empire
• The rise of 'imperial' sciences, such as geography, ethnography and anthropology
• Postcolonial rewritings of Victorian texts
• Literary celebrations and criticisms of empire
• The development of imperial ideology

The issue will be guest edited by Dr Muireann O'Cinneide (National University of Ireland, Galway). A prize of £50 will be awarded to the best paper submitted.

We also invite short essays of no longer than 2000 words which approach Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights in a way that is pertinent and interesting for readers outside the academic field, such as A-Level or GCSE students. There will be a prize of £25 for the best short paper submitted.

Please send submissions to Victoriannetwork@gmail.com. Deadline for Submissions: 1st April 2009.

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"Instruction, Amusement and Spectacle: Popular Shows and Exhibitions 1800-1914" Conference

Over 100 speakers from the international academic community are now programmed to participate in the above conference, which will be held at the University of Exeter, UK, from the 16-18 April 2009. Keynote speakers include Professor Bernard Lightman (York University, Ontario), Professor Vanessa Toulmin (Research Director, National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield), Professor Martin Hewitt (Leeds, Trinity & All Saints), Dr. Jon Burrows (University of Warwick) and Dr. Ann Featherstone (University of Manchester). The call for papers has attracted a wide range of subject matter and the conference promises to be an exciting and stimulating event. We are also pleased to announce that we will also be hosting two performances during the conference: Simon Warner's dramatised lecture on Daguerre's Diorama, and Tony Liddington's one-man show on Dan Leno. A full conference programme will be ready by mid-January; registrations forms are already available at http://www.sall.ex.ac.uk/conferences/victorian-shows.html

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The Victorian Newsletter

The Fall 2008 Victorian Newsletter is now available, featuring articles on the Boxer Rebellion, Charlotte Brontë, Hiram Powers' Greek Slave, Victorian slave narratives, and a review essay of recent work on Hopkins by William Harmon. The Spring 2009 number is a special edition of new scholarship on the "elusive" bohemian writer, William North. Subscriptions, submissions, book reviews, announcements and queries are welcome. Please contact the editor at deborah.logan@wku.edu --or -- victorian.newsletter@wku.edu.

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Winners of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) Curran Fellowship

The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) is pleased to announce the awarding of its first Curran Fellowship for research on the Victorian press. Made possible through the generosity of Eileen Curran, Emerita Professor of English at Colby College, these two grants of $2500 each are intended to assist scholars in making use of primary and archival sources for the study of 19th-century British magazines and newspapers.

The winners of the Curran Fellowship for research to be undertaken in 2009 are Sydney J. Shep, Senior Lecturer in Print and Book Culture at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and Elizabeth Carolyn Miller, Assistant Professor of English at the University of California at Davis, USA. Dr. Shep's project, entitled "Typographical Journals & the Printers' Web: A Global Communication Network," will build upon her earlier work on the production and circulation of these trade periodicals by close examination of a London archive of scrapbooks, correspondence, and annotated journals. Dr. Miller's project, "The Birth of Slow Print: Literary Radicalism and Print Culture, 1880-1914," will involve inspection of the George Bernard Shaw archive and the holdings of late-Victorian radical periodicals at the British Library for insight into the workings of a radical press self-consciously at odds with mass print culture.

RSVP congratulates Drs. Shep and Miller, and thanks the many other scholars who applied for this first Curran Fellowship. The large number and high quality of the proposals received by the fellowship committee reflects the vibrancy of 19th-century media studies.

For more information about RSVP and its journal (Victorian Periodicals Review), as well as about next year's Curran Fellowship, please visit the Society's website.

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The Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals Project on JSTOR

In early February JSTOR announced the 19th Century British Pamphlets Project is now freely accessible to all JSTOR participating institutions through June 30, 2009. The collection, created by the Research Libraries UK and funded by the JISC Digitisation Programme, will eventually provide access to a large number of collections. "Approximately 8,200 pamphlets were added to JSTOR today, including portions of the Knowsley Pamphlet Collection (University of Liverpool), Cowen Tracts (Newcastle University), and the Hume Tracts (University College London)." See: http://www.jstor.org/page/info/participate/other/britishPamphlets.jsp

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The Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies

Routledge ABES is a specialised online bibliography providing annotated entries on all of the most significant research in literary studies published each year. Its eight sections include subject areas such as Romanticism and the Eighteenth Century. For further information please see www.routledgeabes.com. A free trial is available online if you would like to browse some of the records in more depth. For all general enquiries regarding Routledge ABES, please contact Jodie.keyse@tandf.co.uk.

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Call for Contributors to the Nineteenth-Century Literature Section of the Routledge ABES

The Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies offers coverage of the most significant material published in the field of literary studies each year. The database consists of selective bibliographies and annotations based on literary and cultural criticism in journal articles, edited volumes, monographs and online resources. It spans a range of scholarship from medieval literature to contemporary writing. Since there is a separate Romantics section, the Nineteenth-Century Literature section in effect covers English-language texts published in Britain, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

With increasing amounts of material being published, in hard copy as well as online, Routledge ABES will provide academics, researchers and students with an authoritative guide to "must have" material, and will therefore be an indispensable, trustworthy tool for any English Department and University library.

It draws on the talents and expertise of a wide range of people in literary studies to provide key information regarding these publications and to complete a critical annotation for each record. Annotations will include a description of the content, a short summary of the argument, and also a critical comment as to why the publication is worth reading. The annotation should be between 200-300 words in length and should be able to answer: What is the publication about? How is it of use/interest? What are the particular strengths of the publication and, if relevant, where is it less strong?

All contributors are overseen by the Associate Editor for the section, who manages the network of contributors, allocates material for review, and approves all annotations before publication. The entire submission process is handled by a specially designed and easy-to-use web-based submission tool. All contributors receive full acknowledgement on the ABES site for their contribution.

If you would like to be a contributor to ABES and/or to learn more about contributing, please contact Johanna M. Smith at johannasmith@uta.edu.

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Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, Friend of William Morris, and Father of "Mrs. Dalloway"

Although he was a friend and colleague to many famous artists, authors, and activists, the lawyer and positivist Vernon Lushington (1832-1912) remains virtually unknown today. In "Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, Friend of William Morris, and Father of 'Mrs. Dalloway,'" historian David Taylor will draw upon previously unavailable materials from the Lushington archive to shed light on the interesting and influential figure who arranged the first meeting between Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and who visited with William and Jane Morris at Kelmscott Manor. Taylor will also discuss the connection between the Lushingtons and the Stephen family. After the death of Mrs. Lushington, Vernon's three daughters were taken under the wing of Julia Stephen, wife of Leslie Stephen and mother of Virginia Woolf. Vernon Lushington's eldest daughter, Kitty, became the model for the title character of Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925). The Lushingtons also spent summers with the Stephen family at Talland House in Cornwall, which provided the setting for the Ramsaeys' summer home in Woolf's To the Lighthouse (1927). Letters in the archive offer insight into Woolf's fiction.

Thursday, 12 March 2009, at 6pm, at the Grolier Club (47 E 60th St, New York). For more information, see the Morris Society website.

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NACBS Undergraduate Essay Contest

The North American Conference on British Studies essay contest in British Studies for undergraduates enrolled at United States universities and colleges awards six prizes of $100 each, according to the following guidelines:

1. The essay must have been written while the author was a degree-seeking undergraduate at a U.S. college or university. Essays written for courses, or as theses are acceptable.
2. Each essay must be nominated by a member of the NACBS. No individual may nominate more than one essay in any one year.
3. Essays in any field of British Studies are welcome.
4. Essays should be between 10 and 25 pages, excluding citations and references.
5. Please submit a letter of nomination along with an electronic or three hard copies of the essay by June 1, 2009 to Professor Peter Hoffenberg, Department of History, University of Hawaii, 2530 Dole Street, Sakamaki Hall A203 · Honolulu, HI 96822-2283. Email: peterh@hawaii.edu.
6. For further information please feel free to contact Prof. Hoffenberg at the above address.

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