The British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS) was set up in 1989 by academics to promote the study of the cultural history of the Romantic period. Since then, BARS has organised eight International conferences at various locations in the UK, has published the BARS Bulletin and Review twice-yearly, and developed and maintained a 300-strong membership of British and overseas academics. We would particularly like to welcome North American and Canadian Romanticists to BARS. Overseas members share all the benefits of British members, and will find BARS a useful source of information concerning conferences and publications organised by its members.
In recent years, BARS has extended its activities into a number of important new fields: it supports a series of annual BARS postgraduate conferences, which offer postgraduates an informal arena in which to give and listen to academic papers and discuss their work. BARS also funds the Stephen Copley Postgraduate Bursaries; applicants can apply for sums up to £200 to help them in their research expenses. There is an electronic mailbase for BARS members, informing them of worldwide conferences and events in the field as well as relevant new publications.
The BARS International Conference has a long history of successful four-day events attended by both eminent and new Romanticists from Britain and abroad. These conferences showcase the new work being done in the field of Romantic studies. They are held biannually, and the next conference will take place at the University of Newcastle from Thursday 28 until Sunday 31 July 2005 under the title ‘Romanticism’s Debatable Lands’. The BARS Bulletin is published twice-yearly and informs members of upcoming events, publications and notices relevant to their interests as well as offering an extensive reviews section, reflecting the research interests of BARS members. Members receive the BARS Bulletin and Review twice a year and be joined to the BARS Electronic Mailbase.
Please contact: Sharon Ruston, BARS Membership Secretary and Treasurer, English Department, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales LL57 2DG, UK, els803@bangor.ac.uk, for further information about membership.
Sharon Ruston
els803@bangor.ac.uk
The recent changing of the guard, as it were, at the Keats-Shelley Journal–with Peter Manning now serving as the new Editor and Jeanne Moskal taking over as the new Book Review Editor–offers an occasion for the Keats-Shelley Association of America to invite you to become a member and subscribe to the Journal. The Association supports a range of activities related to Romanticism, including conferences and awards, and members receive notices of special events and opportunities. Students are given a special low rate with a verifying letter from an instructor. Advanced categories of support are also available for established scholars and others who wish to contribute to the association. The full list of membership categories and their dollar amounts is available at the Association’s Website:
http://www.rc.umd.edu/ksaa/info.htm
or contact:
Robert A. Hartley,
Secretary, KSAA
Room 226, The New York Public Library
Fifth Avenue at 42 Street
New York, NY 10018-2788
robert.hartley@us.pwcglobal.com
In addition, Jeanne Moskal is looking for potential reviewers. If you are interested in reviewing for the KSJ, please send a summary of your c.v. and your reviewing interests to her at jmoskal@email.unc.edu.
This just in on the continuing power of Frankenstein in popular culture. According to Variety (as reported on Coming Soon!) Martin Scorsese is working with author Dean Koontz and director Marcus Nispel to produce the latest contemporary work (loosely) based on Mary Shelley’s novel, a weekly TV series for USA Network, planned for fall 2004.
The series is to be set in twenty-first century Seattle, where Victor Frankenstein and his creature now live again–thanks to the technology of genetic engineering. The report suggests that the series will combine a crime drama with the Frankenstein elements of the plot, with “the original Frankenstein monster teaming up with the cops to battle both Dr. Frankenstein and his small army of genetic freaks.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Mary Shelley, apparently.
SJ
Romantic Circles has just published The Sceptic: A Hemans-Byron Dialogue, edited by Nanora Sweet and Barbara Taylor, with Adriana Craciun as Consulting Editor and Andrew Elfenbein and Anne Hartman as Contributors.
This edition excavates the text and context of Felicia Hemans’s 1820 pamphlet-poem, The Sceptic. Neglected by Hemans’ pervious editors, this 550-line poem places her in direct contention with Byron over questions of doubt and belief in a time of personal and national uncertainty. Essays incorporated in the digital edition by Anne Hartman, Andrew Elfenbein, Barbara Taylor, and Nanora Sweet present Hemans’s inclinations toward philosophical and theological scepticism, her immersion in the topics and stylistic experiments of the day, and her challenges to Byronic genre, style, and theme. Featuring images, letters, and reviews, the edition includes a “guided tour” of the poem that follows its Sceptic’s “progress” through a cosmos spanning heaven and earth.
RC Eds.
Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan will deliver tonight the inaugural Robert Burns Memorial Lecture at the UN in New York. His topic is “The State of the World and the Brotherhood of Man.” The lecture series is named in honor of the poet and his “belief in the equality of mankind.”
The story can be found at Scotsman.com.
The updated selective online Supplement 2003 to volumes I-III of the Coleridge Bibliography was released on December 12, 2003. The last to be prepared by Walter B. Crawford and Ann M. Crwaford, it contains a revised Preface and more than 400 annotated items (many illustrated), including about 70 added since the 2000 edition. It can be found at:
http://www.csulb.edu/library/donors/Crawford/Supplement2003.html
Supplement 2003 is hyperlinked to and from the Crawford Coleridge Collection Website:
http://www.csulb.edu/library/donors/Crawford/CCC3.html
and to and from the Coleridge Bibliography Website:
http://www.csulb.edu/library/donors/Crawford/CBibl3.html
To make it easy for the users of this Supplement to discover what items have been added, revised, or updated since the 2000 edition, a section has been added listing just the identifying first line of each such item, enabling a user to determine quickly their location.
Librarians, scholars interested in the English Romantics, Coleridge scholars particularly, and those teaching graduate students most particularly, should pay special attention to the revised Preface to Supplement 2003, and most especially to the paragraphs looking forward to volume IV of the Coleridge Bibliography.
The Crawfords express their gratitude to the many persons interested in Coleridge who have sent them information for the Supplement as well as materials to be deposited in the non-circulating Crawford Coleridge Collection, where this material will always be available to scholars—including future bibliographers—and others interested in Coleridge. Such contributions have been noted in the Supplement as well as acknowledged by the Dean of the Library of California State University, Long Beach.
W. B. Crawford
