Romantic Circles Blog

The BARS (British Association for Romantic Studies) website is now online at http://www.bars.ac.uk.

The site features information about BARS conferences, calls for papers for other Romantic-period conferences, reviews from back issues of the BARS Bulletin & Review, a designated postgraduate section, information of BARS grants and bursaries, and as a list of useful links.

The site also includes a ‘For Members’ section, which can only be accessed by BARS members by means of individual usernames and passwords. This section of the site contains details of current projects and publications in the field, a list of the research interests of BARS members, details of whether you are up-to-date with your BARS subs, and as a list of subject-specific resources.

There is also a downloadable application form for those who wish to join BARS on the site.

Please send any content you wish to appear on the website to the moderators Sharon Ruston s.ruston@bangor.ac.uk and Simon Kövesi skovesi@brookes.ac.uk.

Call for Papers: 4th International Student Byron Conference
Messolonghi Byron Research Center, Greece
May 17-25, 2005
Theme: “Byron the Homeric Traveller”

The Messolonghi Byron Research Center solicits 20-minute papers for its fourth international student Byron conference to be held May 17-25, 2005. The conference theme will be “Byron the Homeric Traveller.” This broad topic may be construed in a variety of ways to focus on biography, history, mythology, or literature. Papers may consider Byron, Homer, the classical, Romantic, or contemporary idea of travel, or other subjects. Please e-mail one-paragraph (approximately 300 words) abstracts to Professor Peter Graham (pegraham@vt.edu) and to Professor Malcolm Kelsall (kelsall@cardiff.ac.uk ) by February 15, 2005. Tentative acceptances will be sent to presenters by March 1. The chosen student presenters should then send completed drafts of their papers by May 1. The student papers will be supplemented by lectures by Greek and English professors and scholars. This year’s keynote address will be delivered by Professor Malcolm Kelsall of the University of Wales, Cardiff.

If enrollment requests permit, a limited number of student participants who do not wish to present papers will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

On one day of the conference, graduate and undergraduate English majors from Athens University and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki will come down with their professors to join the group. Then and other times, there will be abundant opportunities to learn about Greek life through first-hand experience. There will be welcoming ceremonies and receptions with meals, singing, and dancing hosted by the Mayor of Messolonghi, the Regional Governor, and mayors of neighboring towns, along with visits to historic and archaeological sites and museums associated with Byron and with Homer. In keeping with the conference’s theme, a two-day excursion to the island of Ithaca, with visits to excavations of Odysseos’ palace and other archaeological sites, will follow the academic sessions. Conference-goers will have the options of returning by ferry and coach to Messolonghi and from there to Athens or some other destination or staying on for further exploration of Ithaca or other Ionian islands.

A 650-euro conference fee will provide six nights of lodging in double rooms with breakfast at the Theoxenia Hotel by the Messolonghi lagoonside, two nights with breakfast at a hotel on Ithaca, transportation to and from the island, most lunches and dinners, and all social events and excursions. There will be a 100-euro surcharge for single accommodations. The actual cost of the conference is 800 euros, but due to generous sponsorships the Messolonghi Byron Society will be able to reduce the conference fee by 150 euros per person.

Airfare to Greece and transportation to Messolonghi are additional and should be arranged individually.

Again, the deadline for registration and abstracts: February 15, 2005.

Full descriptions of the three previous international student conferences can be found on the Messolonghi Byron Society’s web page:

www.messolonghibyronsociety.gr

For further information please contact the society’s president, Mrs. Rosa Florou (byronlib@teimes.gr).

Professor Peter W. Graham, Director of International Relations, Messolonghi Byron Research Center
Professor Malcolm Kelsall, Department of English, University of Wales Cardiff
Professor M. Byron Raizis, Joint President, International Byron Society
Mrs. Rosa Florou, President, Messolonghi Byron Society and Director, Messolonghi Byron Research Center

The Georgetown Theatre Company presents a staged reading of THE OFFENSIVE: A timely comic variation on Lord Byron’s Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice

By R. L. Nesvet
Directed by Catherine Aselford

Friday, 19th November, 2004, 7.30 p.m.
Grace Church, Georgetown
1041 Wisconsin Ave., NW (South of M St.)
Washington, D.C.

It’s 1355, and the Venetian Senate has just refused to punish with the death penalty a graffiti artist who has insulted the honour of Doge Marino Faliero, the recently elected leader of the Republic. The Doge decides to ‘get justice’—by assassinating the Senators and establishing a dictatorship, with himself as Prince. All the Doge needs to accomplish “leader stabilization, regime change” is “backup,” but the only backup available is “the Conspiracy,” whose objective is to depose HIM. Can the Doge turn this terrorist cell into respectable “Patriots” overnight, without setting off the jewel of the Republic’s defence system — the mysterious Ratapult?

For more information, contact
tgtc@earthlink.net
or
upstart_crow2@yahoo.com

Pay-what-you-can donation requested.

ANNOUNCING an NEH SUMMER SEMINAR FOR COLLEGE TEACHERS 2005: “Genre, Dialogue, and Community in British Romanticism”

13 June – 22 July 2005
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Directed by Stephen C. Behrendt
Participant stipend: $4200

http://www.unl.edu/sbehrend/html/sbsite/projects/NEH2005/Info2005.htm

I invite applications for colleagues in English studies (especially later 18th and early19th century British literature and culture) for a six-week interdisciplinary NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers here at the University of Nebraska in summer 2005. We will work together to gain a fuller appreciation of the broad variety of British Romantic literary culture by examining the interrelations that often go unexplored in traditional scholarship between works executed in a particular genre (poetry, prose fiction, drama, etc.) and the contemporaneous production in the other literary genres as well as in extra-literary areas like the visual arts, music, economics, science, print journalism, and history and historiography.

My goal is to bring together colleagues from all professional ranks and at all stages of their professional careers in order to provide an interactive forum for us to explore the impact for our research and for our teaching of this cross-genre inquiry. Seminar participants will conduct research on their own individual projects in the various genres, but we will spend time together discussing parallel developments and phenomena in those other genres (and areas of cultural production) with which we may not be as familiar as we are with our most accustomed one. I hope that this collegial conversation will lead to more wide-ranging and more culturally diverse scholarship and teaching in Romanticism than is sometimes the case when we find ourselves academically grounded in a particular genre and confined for both curricular and professional reasons to conducting most of our work in that area of inquiry.

The University of Nebraska Libraries offer splendid resources for the study of Romanticism in these broader contexts. In addition to the “Corvey Collection” of nearly 10,000 Romantic-era titles in English, French, and German, the library has extensive microform archives of contemporary periodicals that permit detailed contextual study of the Romantic literary culture. The library is a modern and well-stocked one, with excellent electronic resources for advanced study, including high-speed internet and a burgeoning program of initiatives in electronic scholarship and electronic texts, to all of which seminar participants will have full access.

Participants will enjoy full library privileges as visiting faculty, as well as visiting scholar status in the Department of English, where they will have individual office space during the seminar.

I have posted a detailed description of the seminar at the following URL:

http://www.unl.edu/sbehrend/html/sbsite/projects/NEH2005/Info2005.htm

This site has links to university resources (including the library and housing accommodations), to the necessary application information, and to a variety of community attractions. Lincoln is a pleasant and inviting place to work in the summer, and I look forward to welcoming and working with you and your colleagues.

Please note that I am actively encouraging applications from colleagues not just in English Studies, but also in History, Theatre, Art History, Music History, Journalism (and the history of print culture), Economics, and Comparative Studies in the Humanities. Tell your colleagues!

Please let me know if I can answer any questions or provide further information.

Stephen C. Behrendt
George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English
319 Andrews Hall
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68588-0333

Phone: (402) 472-1806
FAX: (402) 472-9771
sbehrendt1@unl.edu

Conference: British Women Playwrights, 1780-1830, Chapman University, March 12, 2005

CALL FOR PAPERS

Proposals for papers are invited for the Conference on British Women Playwrights, 1780-1830, at Chapman University, March 12, 2005. Proposals for entire panels are also welcome. Panels may be made up of four 15-minute papers or three 20-minute papers, plus discussion. The day of lectures, papers, and panels will feature a performance of Hannah Cowley’s A Bold Strike for a Husband from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m. Coffee and refreshments will be served at 8:30 a.m., with lectures and papers to commence at 9:00 a.m. There will be a luncheon at 12:00 p.m., the matinee performance at 1:30, followed by afternoon sessions from 4:00 to 6:45, with a reception and dinner at 7:00. Featured speakers will include Jeffrey Cox and Anne Mellor. A selection of conference papers will be published in a special issue of European Romantic Review.

Send two copies of panel proposals or paper abstracts of 250 words by December 3, 2004 to Matthew Schneider, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866 or electronically to schneide@chapman.edu.