RSVP

The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals

webmaster@rs4vp.org

CFP: Media 19 Conference. The press and journalists in the 19th century: identities and modernities (Paris, 8-12 June 2015)

The French-Quebecker Media 19 project, funded by the Agence nationale de la recherche (France) and the Fonds de recherche québécois – Société et culture (2011-2015) is now completing its first phase. Devised around the www.medias19.org digital platform, the project serves as a frame for developing critical thinking on journalistic practices in the 19th century, on the promotion and analysis of corpuses, as well as on the study of media culture development within the Francophone space. This conference is an opportunity to both assess past activities (using the Medias 19 platform data) and to invite researchers to discuss ongoing projects. The conference will last five working days and revolves around five main axes, which have determined scientific research as conducted by Medias 19.

The conference will be in Paris, at the Canadian Cultural Center (5, rue de Constantine, 7th arrondissement). Paper presentations are 20 minutes long. Proposals (250 words, a short bio, full contact addresses, home institution) must be sent to congresM19@gmail.com by January 1, 2015.

CFP Workshop: Dissecting Society. Periodical Literature and Social Observation (1830-1850)

New York University (Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences), 20th of March 2015

Between 1830 and 1850, on a rapidly expanding print market, a vast amount of short literary pieces on cultural manners, social types and societal developments appeared on the European press and beyond. These “protosociological sketches“ (M. Lauster) or “panoramic literature“ (W. Benjamin) were published in the periodical press as well as in serial collections frequently illustrated with engravings. Assembling an extensive array of urban and rural types, these literary and visual sketches, commissioned to writers, aimed at constructing a total view of a city or of a nation, and were later to appear in compilations such as Paris, ou le livre des cent-et-un, Heads of the People or Los españoles pintados por sí mismos, to name just a few. In trying to reveal outer appearances and inner logics of their period, these sketches involve reflect on concepts such as “culture”, “society” and “nation”. Even though there has been a considerable amount of studies about “panoramic literature“ in terms of literary criticism, its alliances with the emerging humanities and social sciences has rarely been studied. Hence, this workshop aims to stimulate an interdisciplinary and transnational approach to this literary corpus, in order to reconsider it vis-à-vis the emergence of the social sciences.

The workshop will be held on the 20th of March 2015 at the Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences at New York University. It will bring together researchers from any discipline related to panoramic literature (and its visual production) as early forms of sociological observation within a history of knowledge. Comprised by 15-20 minutes papers integrated into panels, the workshop will provide an opportunity to exchange ideas, to advance work in progress and nourish new collaborations.

We encourage the submission of papers, especially of those sharing work in progress. Topics covered may include:

 

  • Delimiting “proto-sociological“ or “panoramic“ literature in an interdisciplinary perspective: borders, overlaps, modes of definition (e.g. interdependencies with statistical, economic or antiquarian works, with urban portrait and reportage, political journalism, or travel literature)
  • Recurrent lines of discourse of social observation (social classes and money as structuring features, the rise of “new“ values, new technologies, declining customs and professions).
  • Conditions of reception: readership and social/political impact of the sketches
  • National/regional differences and interregional/transnational circulations/ adaptations of sociological knowledge
  • Text-image relationships in relation to emerging forms of sociological and ethnographical representation.
  • Epistemology: scientific currents and the adaptation of patterns of knowledge (zoology, botany, medicine, physiology, physiognomy, biology…)
  • Evaluations of societal questions and ideologies
  • The city as context and content of social observation, institutions of knowledge, and the rise of social science

 

Please send your abstract by November 30, 2014 (400 words maximum) to christiane.schwab@hu-berlin.de. The conference language will be English. You will be notified about your participation by December 10.

We will ask the participants to submit a one-page paper containing the thesis of their presentation by March 1. We will then distribute these papers among the rest of the participants.

CFP Making It New: Victorian and Modernist Literature and Periodicals, 1875-1935

This conference aims to suture the ‘divide’ between ‘Victorian’ and ‘Modernist’ literature, to explore the ways in which they dovetailed and overlapped, shared ideals and textual practice. We seek papers exploring novels, poetry, periodicals, little modernist magazines and other textual ephemera.

Abstracts of 300 words should be submitted by 5 January 2015 to:

Deborah Mutch, dmutch@dmu.ac.uk
Louise Kane, louise.kane@dmu.ac.uk

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Announcing the Launch of the Vann Victorian Collection

A lot of us will know the name J. Don Vann from the landmark collections that he edited with Rosemary VanArsdel: Victorian Periodicals: A Guide to Research (1978; 1989) Victorian Periodicals and Victorian Society (1994), and Periodicals of Queen Victoria’s Empire (1996). Don, a founding member of RSVP, has now donated the vast collection of Victorian books and magazines — including many rare part-issues — that he and his wife, Dolores, have assembled since 1962 to the University of North Texas Libraries.

The Vann Victorian Collection, which includes a permanent funds to purchase additional Victorian books for the collection,, has officially opened at the UNT Libraries. An online virtual exhibit includes a video interview with Don Vann in which he talks about RSVP, Dickens, and many other aspects of his career.

Call for Applications – Gale Dissertation Research Fellowship

The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) is pleased to announce the fifth annual Gale Dissertation Research Fellowship, made possible by the generosity of publisher Gale, part of Cengage Learning, in support of dissertation research that makes substantial use of full-text digitized collections of 19th-century British magazines and newspapers. A prize of $1500 will be awarded, together with one year’s passworded subscription to selected digital collections from Gale, including 19th Century UK Periodicals and 19th Century British Library Newspapers.

Please see our Awards page for further information.