RSVP

The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals

RSVP News

Call for Papers: ‘Visual Design: the Periodical Page as a Designed Surface’

Call for Papers: ‘Visual Design: the Periodical Page as a Designed Surface’

International Conference of the DFG research unit “Journalliteratur“ (FOR 2288), 23-25 November 2017, Philipps-Universität Marburg (Germany)

The conference “Visual design: the periodical page as a designed surface” is concerned with the visual design of the Journal, taken to mean the whole spectrum of periodical print publications, including amongst others newspapers and magazines. Interest is thus focused on the periodical page (or double-page spread) as a visible printed surface on which words and images appear in a designed context. The premise is that the written and pictorial content of the periodical are not realized in abstraction (as disembodied and placeless), but remain tied to the materiality of the periodical, which provides for a two-dimensional and sequential arrangement of diverse visual elements. The design governs how words and pictures appear across the broad spectrum of different media formats, as illustrations or in the typography or layout. The aim of the conference is to identify and outline periodical-specific elements of (double) page design, not least in comparison to the formats of other media, especially the book. Here the research unit is concentrating on German-language forms from the long 19th century. Older and more recent examples may also be discussed within the framework of the conference. Papers on periodical cultures in other languages are also explicitly encouraged. Case studies will be welcomed, as will historical and international comparisons, or studies comparing different media. The content and context of the following subject areas should be addressed:

  1. Preconditions: technology / economics / organization

The visual presentation of a printed page, the way words and pictures are arranged on it, e.g. the way they are distributed over columns or framed, is linked with technical requirements, e.g. with paper manufacturing, or the possibilities of typesetting, printing or binding. Page design is also influenced, however, by processes of organization and distribution, as well as by economic considerations. These connections, in turn, are subject to historical change: the acceleration of production processes as a result of technological developments, the improvement of distribution channels, or the diversification of the journalistic and literary market. Some possible questions on this complex might be: to what extent are historical caesurae in layout linked with technological innovations? Which specific forms of work emerge in different countries or in particular magazine formats? How does the organization of work processes shape the interplay of image and word? What layout schemes were recognized as especially efficient? What aspects of visual design practice are emphasized by the terms visual design, graphic design, layout, mise en page, typography etc.?

  1. Forms: aesthetics / design

Areas of interest from an aesthetic point of view are the rules determining page makeup, which are also subject to historical changes. These include prevailing logics of composition in the area of typography and layout, the way the reader’s gaze and attention are directed by the design and arrangement of areas of text and image on the periodical page (or double-page spread), and the rules and techniques for optimizing perception by means of typeface or image composition, typography, illustration and layout. The combination of texts and images constitutes a particular formal problem. Relevant questions might be, for example: what varying design strategies characterize different magazine cultures? What forms of the visuality of writing emerge in specific media and formats? What methods and terms can be used to describe the complex connections on a page and between the pages? What links are established between image and text?

  1. Consequences: cultures of reception / semantics / effects

The designed surface of the periodical page is intended to guide its own reception by means of optical arrangements. The visual design shapes specific reader expectations corresponding to the given media format, and suggests certain meanings, but at the same time it works on the premise that readers are able to understand the visual codes. As the number of pictures has increased since the 19th century, the relationship between image and word has taken centre stage. The connections created between pictures and words may be semantically contrasting, indifferent or mutually affirming. But pictures can also form the flow of words into a textual image, or make the page look like a three-dimensional arrangement. Relevant questions in this context might include: how is the content linked with the typography and layout? What directions of looking and reading are allowed for by the design, the columns and frames? To what extent can it be assumed that the contemporary audience had the skills to decipher the semantics of the typography and layout? Can intentions and concepts relating to the directing of readers’ attention be linked with the historical context? What role is played by frames, columns, and other methods for dividing up the page?

Submissions: Submissions are invited for 25-minute conference presentations. The conference languages are generally English and German, but presentations in French are also welcomed. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered by the research unit organizing the event. To apply, please submit abstracts (maximum length 500 words) and a short CV (maximum 150 words), which should be sent to journale@uni-marburg.de by 15 January, 2017.

The conference is being organized by subprojects 3 (Volker Mergenthaler, Nicola Kaminski, Stephanie Gleißner), 4 (Andreas Beck) and 5 (Jens Ruchatz, Vincent Fröhlich).

Please contact journale@uni-marburg.de if you have any questions.

Website of the research unit: www.rub.de/journalliteratur

 

RSVP Field Development Grant Accepting Proposals Now

In 2017 the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals will award one RSVP Field Development Grant to a single researcher or a team of researchers pursuing a project that would facilitate research by other scholars. Two smaller awards may be given if the right projects present themselves. The amount of the award will be up to $27,500. Please see the Field Development Grant page of our website for more details. The deadline for applications is February 1, 2017.

RSVP 2017 Conference Website Now Live

The website for the upcoming annual RSVP conference ‘Borders and Border Crossings’ hosted at Freiburg University, Germany 27th – 29th July 2017 is now live. Here you will find the CFP, information on travelling to the conference and advice on accommodation. The deadline for submitting a proposal is 31st January 2017.

Michael Wolff

It is with enormous sorrow that we announce the death of Michael Wolff. He was of course a founding figure of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, and a crucial figure in the successful development of the Society over the past fifty years. His commitment to what is now Victorian Periodicals Review has been a major factor in the journal’s success. Beyond the Society, he has been a visionary and effective presence in the field of Victorian Studies more widely. His work with Jim Dyos on the magisterial volumes of The Victorian City  (1973), for example, gave direction and inspiration to a whole generation of cross disciplinary scholars working at a time when Victorian Studies was still finding its way. He has also been a consistent presence within theVICTORIA discussion list throughout its long history.

There will be many future occasions when we will want to mark and celebrate Michael’s work and his long association with the Society, and this short announcement is not the place to begin to do so. I feel his loss personally – I first met Michael in Leicester over forty years ago, and his quirky and occasionally mischievous support and advice throughout my career has meant much to me. I am sure that I was not the only young scholar who benefited from his kindness, knowledge and wisdom over the years. He will be much missed.

Brian Maidment
President, RSVP.

Call for Papers – Special Issue of Victorian Periodicals Review: “The Material Culture of Victorian Domestic Life and the Press”

Guest Editor, Julie Codell

The Victorian press actively shaped Victorians’ notions of domestic life around several topics: material culture, architecture, interior design, and the gendering of domestic space. Deborah Cohen’s Household Gods (2009) and Thad Logan’s The Victorian Parlour (2006) both articulate a critical analysis of Victorian domestic life joined with material culture studies to go beyond the stereotypes of cluttered rooms and gendered “separate” spaces. Recently Jane Hamlett’s Material Relations (2010) continues the exploration of how people lived at home through a study of their material goods. Scholars such as John Potvin have explored interior design in relation to orientalism, sexual orientation, and modernity in a flood of now well-established material culture studies sparked by Daniel Miller, Judith Attfield, and others. In addition to the many coffee table books on Victorian interiors and furnishings are new readings of Victorian authors Isabella Beeton, Charles Eastlake, and Mary Eliza Haweis on domestic taste and furnishings, as well as a neo-Victorian fascination with Victorian design, food, cooking culture, and household management.

Despite this literature, there are still many understudied areas in the periodical press:

  • working-class domestic lives,
  • rural home decoration and furnishing in relation to urban design and furnishings,
  • the ways Britons recreated British domestic life in the colonies,
  • prescriptions of family roles,
  • the home as both private and public,
  • the changing role of the manor house in the development of national cultural identity,
  • the physical organization of domestic space,
  • changes in laws, aesthetics, and gender and class relations (e.g., the 1882 Married Women’s Property Act, the 1870 Education Act, Aestheticism, the department store, the New Woman) that introduced new objects, designs, family relations, gender roles and spatial structures in the home,
  • advertising and illustrations of furnishings and the material page.

This list is not meant to restrict but to suggest topics. This CFP seeks to elicit essays on the press’s role in the production of domestic life as an ideal and a set of practices functioning across class and the geography of Britain and the colonies. We encourage authors to address the texture of conflicting views on how to conduct and represent domestic life within individual periodicals and across periodicals that contained different ideologies, intentions, and readerships. We welcome proposals on the structures and spaces of domestic life examined and prescribed in a range of periodicals—the women’s press, architecture journals, general periodicals, the art press and other specialized or trade periodicals.

Please submit a 300-word abstract outlining your proposed contribution by December 1, 2016, to julie.codell@asu.edu. Final drafts of essays selected for inclusion in the special issue will be due July 1, 2017. These essays should be 5,000–9,000 words in length (including notes and bibliography) and should be formatted in Chicago style.