Enfilade

English Catholic Women Writers, 1660-1829
Special Issue of Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, edited by Anna Battigelli and Laura M. Stevens

Abstracts due by 1 June 2011

This special issue of Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature will focus on English Catholic women’s imaginative work as it was inflected by Catholicism or through self-identification with a Catholic minority culture during the long eighteenth century. Articles on eighteenth-century Catholic women from the British Isles, including exiled English women working abroad or in the colonies, are sought exploring topics including, though not limited to, the following:

1. the strategies English Catholic women used to express, promote, or protect their faith
2. the intersections of gender and faith, particularly in the face of anti-Catholic polemic equating all Catholics with women or with the feminine
3. women’s education
4. the role of religious houses or religious orders within literary texts or as sites of literary or artistic production
5. the reciprocal influence of Anglo-Catholic culture and Gothic literature
6. Catholic women’s political engagement as Torries or Jacobites
7. their literary, artistic, or political responses to the Catholicism of the Restoration Court, the Stuart kings, the Revolution of 1688, the Whig ascendancy, or Catholic emancipation
8. their representation of English national history or English national identity
9. their participation in the minority press.

Most of the essays will concentrate on women writers, but proposals for essays on other forms of women’s imaginative work, particularly the visual and domestic arts, are welcome. All essays should be informed by the rich repository of recent work in early modern Catholic studies. Articles should not exceed 25 pages (6250 words) and should conform to the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. All submissions should be in Microsoft Word. Initial queries and abstracts are encouraged, though final acceptance will be determined by the completed essay. Please send abstracts by June 1, 2011 and final submissions via e-mail by September 1, 2011 to both: Anna Battigelli (SUNY, Plattsburgh), a.battigelli@att.net AND Laura M. Stevens (editor, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, University of Tulsa), laura-stevens@utulsa.edu

New Edited Collection on Women in Eighteenth-Century Scotland
Proposals due by 18 April 2011

The eighteenth century looms large in the Scottish imagination. It is a century that saw the doubling of the population, rapid urbanisation, industrial growth, the political Union of 1707, the Jacobite Rebellions and the Enlightenment – events that were intrinsic to the creation of the modern nation and to putting Scotland on the international map. The impact of the era on modern Scotland can be seen in the numerous buildings named after the luminaries of the period –Adam Smith, David Hume, William Robertson, the endorsement of Robert Burns as the national poet/ hero, the preservation of the Culloden battlefield as a tourist attraction, and the physical geographies of its major towns. Yet, while it is a century that remains central to modern constructions of national identity, it is a period associated with men. Until recently, the history of women in eighteenth-century Scotland, with perhaps the honourable exception of Flora McDonald, remained unwritten. Over the last decade however, research on women and gender in Scotland has flourished and we have an increasingly full picture of women’s lives at all social levels across the century. As a result, this is an appropriate moment to reflect on what we know about Scottish women during the eighteenth century, to ask how their history affects the traditional narratives of the period, and to reflect on the implications for a national history of Scotland and Scottish identity. (more…)

From the APAHAU blog:

Special Issue of Histoire de l’Art — Future Directions
Proposals due 2 May 2011; finished articles due 1 September 2011

La reconsidération du champ et des objets de l’histoire de l’art depuis les années soixante-dix, comme l’apparition et le développement d’approches théoriques nouvelles dans cette discipline, ont conduit à une transformation de nos pratiques, voire à leurs redéfinitions au sein des sciences humaines et sociales. Parmi elles, la tendance récente à embrasser la production visuelle au sens large et à revendiquer les expérimentations théoriques et pratiques propre aux études visuelles fait émerger de nouvelles interrogations.

A quels défis l’histoire de l’art se confronte-t-elle en participant de ce mouvement général qui appréhende globalement les œuvres – pour la plupart sacralisées par l’institution muséale – et l’ensemble des images et des objets qui se prêtent plus trivialement au regard et à la manipulation ? Dans cette reconfiguration des humanités (visual turn), quelle pourrait être la place de l’histoire de l’art ? Comment peut-elle ou doit-elle asseoir son rôle éventuel de moteur des visual studies sur sa pratique traditionnelle, d’autant qu’il s’agit sans doute de la discipline la plus à même de mettre en évidence la façon, dont les mondes visuels s’informent les uns les autres ? Enfin, face à cette nouvelle donne, l’histoire de l’art sera-t-elle à l’avant-poste des sciences de l’homme et de la société, ou, au contraire, sujette à une forme de dilution ? (more…)

Bluestockings: The Social Network
Swansea University, 3-4 June 2011

Proposals due by 14 March 2011

This colloquium is the first in a series initiated by an AHRC-funded network whose purpose is to set in motion a project to edit Elizabeth Montagu’s letters. The c. 8,000 letters of the ‘Queen of the Bluestockings’ (1718-1800) have been described by Barbara Schnorrenberg as “among the most important surviving collections from the eighteenth century.” The Steering Committee comprises Caroline Franklin (Swansea), Elizabeth Eger (King’s, London), Nicole Pohl (Oxford Brookes), and Michael Franklin (Swansea) and our ultimate aim is a complete critical edition in electronic format, providing unparalleled access to these documents.

Our colloquium Bluestockings: The Social Network will be held on 3-4 June 2011 at Swansea University and the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, featuring keynote lectures by Professor Betty Schellenberg and Professor Felicity Nussbaum. In attempting to diversify and extend our own network, we invite the contributions of editors and scholars working on aspects of bluestocking culture from a variety of disciplinary approaches, including history, literature, classics, politics, economics, linguistics, art, architecture and women’s studies. Possible themes and topics might include: the chief salonnières and their correspondents and how this interchange effected, in the words of David Hume, “the increase of arts, pleasures, and social commerce”; the distinctions between friendship, patronage and love; the role of letters in bridging distances. Consideration of the mixture of informality, intimacy and rivalry which characterized these overlapping networks of conversation, correspondence, criticism, and patronage will undoubtedly further the social and intellectual progress of our own twenty-first-century network. We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers. Please send abstracts of approximately 200 words to both Caroline Franklin c.franklin@swansea.ac.uk and Elizabeth Eger elizabeth.eger@kcl.ac.uk by 14 March 2011.

Though primarily a literary conference, organizers are interested in interdisciplinary work that addresses issues of architecture, urban space, &c. From the conference website:

Literary London 2011: Representations of London in Literature, An Interdisciplinary Conference
The Institute of English Studies, University of London, 20-22 July 2011

Proposals due by 31 March 2011

Organised by the University of Northampton, Kingston University, London, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London

The 10th Annual Literary London conference will be hosted by the Institute of English Studies, University of London. The Institute is located in Bloomsbury, at the centre of literary London, and just a few minutes’ walk from such attractions as the British Library, the British Museum, and the clubs, pubs, and restaurants of Soho. It is at the heart of London: one of the world’s major cities with a long and rich literary tradition reflecting both its diversity and its significance as a cultural and commercial centre. Literary London 2011 aims to:

• Read literary and dramatic texts in their historical and social context and in relation to theoretical approaches to the study of the metropolis.
• Investigate the changing cultural and historical geography of London.
• Consider the social, political, and spiritual fears, hopes, and perceptions that have inspired representations of London.
• Trace different traditions of representing London and examine how the pluralism of London society is reflected in London literature.
• Celebrate the contribution London and Londoners have made to English literature and drama.

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers which consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-Roman times to its imagined futures. While the main focus of the conference will be on literary texts, we actively encourage interdisciplinary contributions relating film, architecture, geography, theories of urban space, etc., to literary representations of London. Papers from postgraduate students are particularly welcome for consideration. While papers on all areas of literary London are welcomed, the conference theme in 2011 is ‘Green London’. Topics that might be addressed are: (more…)

Enslavement: Colonial Appropriations, Apparitions, Remembrances, 1750-Present Day
University of Portsmouth, Centre for Studies in Literature Annual Postgraduate Symposium, 17 June 2011

Proposals due by 25 February 2011

Keynote Speaker: Professor James Walvin

Harold Bloom, in his critical introduction to Enslavement and Emancipation (2010) does not, as one might expect, lament the monstrous history of the slave trade. Instead, he returns to the second book of Tanakh (Exodus): an original tale of bondage and liberation. For Bloom, it is not merely a matter of re-imagining a theme now largely associated with the transatlantic slave trade, but moreover to consider how ‘[l]iberation movements to come will go on
finding their model in it’. The Hebrews’ bondage in Egypt, here conceptualized as archetypal suffering and liberation, resonates for Bloom throughout history, leaving its trace in subsequent emancipation movements. Recent studies in the slave trade, too, often move beyond the historical moment to consider how cultural events are remembered, appropriated and disseminated. This work has garnered interest in Britain since the bicentenary of abolition in 2007; the issue of remembrance remains somewhat political and contentious in the US today.

This symposium aims to consider the wider connotations of the term ‘enslavement’ as well as its more specific importance in critical studies of slavery, memory and cultural return. We welcome papers that consider ideas of colonial appropriation; fiscal, somatic, or agricultural enslavement and / or indenture in literature from 1750 to the present day. Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

• Slave Trade Literature
• Economies of Colonial Exploitation / Fiscal Enslavement
• Postcolonial Theory
• ‘Hauntology’ / Memory Theory and Slavery
• Psychological Enslavement
• Hegelian Master / Slave Dialectics

We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers. Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words to Lucy Ball and Jane Ford: cslpgconf@port.ac.uk.