RSVP

The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals

RSVP News & Events

VanArsdel Prize Winner Announced

The 2021 VanArsdel Prize has been awarded to Elizabeth Howard (PhD Candidate, University of Minnesota) for her essay, “‘Keeping Christmas’ on the Page: the Adelaide Observer, Alice in Wonderland, and the Australian Periodical at Play.”

The committee commented, “This is an excellently written, interesting essay that focuses on an understudied area to make an original contribution to the field of periodical studies. Its astute analysis of the Adelaide Observer highlights this newspaper’s status as a colonial/settler production but contains insights more broadly relevant to newspaper culture in the Victorian world.” 

The VanArsdel Prize, established in 1990 to honor Rosemary VanArsdel, is awarded annually to the best graduate student essay investigating Victorian periodicals and newspapers. The winning essay will be published in Victorian Periodicals Review. Congratulations, Elizabeth Howard!

Workshop: The Making of Transimperial Technological Networks

Logo of Bahishkrit Bharat, a Marathi periodical. The logo features the text of the journal title flanked by two lions in chains atop a banner.

Join us on 21 October 2021 at 5:30 pm BST / 11:30 am CST for a workshop titled, The Making of Transimperial Technological Networks: A Case Study of Select Marathi Periodicals.

This event is the second in our series on Race and Transimperialism. Dr. Vaibhav Singh (University of Reading) will introduce us to Marathi periodicals to discuss aspects of design processes, typographic history, printing and textual communications in the context of transimperial technological networks. The 50-minute workshop will include a presentation from Dr. Singh and Q&A, with time for discussion and suggestions for further reading. The workshop is free. All are welcome. See below for registration information.

Dr. Vaibhav Singh is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, where he recently completed a 3-year British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. His project, “Merchants of alphabets: networks of typographic design and technology in Indian language publishing, 1900–1950” addresses the impact of typographic design and technology on the linguistic diversity of Indian publishing in the decades leading up to the country’s independence. It situates typographic design – a critically under-researched area in publishing and book history – within the intellectual frameworks of nationalism, mass communication, and technological modernity. Dr Singh is the recipient of an RSVP Curran Award in 2021.

His recent publications include:

Singh, V. (2018) The first Indian-script typeface on the Monotype: a missing chapter in the history of mechanical typecasting. Journal of the Printing Historical Society, 29.

Singh, V. (2018) The machine in the colony: technology, politics, and the typography of Devanagari in the early years of mechanization. Philological Encounters, 3 (4).

Register Now

Register here for this free online event. RSVP membership is not mandatory to attend. Event enquiries can be submitted to the Vice President via our contact form.

Call for Guest Editors of VPR

Victorian Periodicals Review invites proposals from guest editors for special themed issues to be published in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Individuals or co-editors should submit proposals to Katherine Malone by October 15, 2021. 

Proposals should include a short description of your topic and its relevance to Victorian periodical studies, along with a brief bio for each editor. A full list of VPR’s past special issues is available on our website.

If your proposal for a special issue is accepted, the guest editor(s) will:

  • Solicit essays (either by CFP or invitation)
  • Select five to seven articles for publication
  • Oversee the revision process
  • Write an introductory essay, and
  • Forward the files to the VPR Editor

We look forward to reading your submissions!

Your How-To Guide to Our 2021 Virtual Conference

How-To Guide Contents:
Registration
Viewing presentations
Zoom links
Session format
Chairing instructions
Zoom tech assistance instructions

 

How does this virtual conference work?

The conference will hold virtual sessions via Zoom, from 8-11 September, at the times indicated on the conference schedule. Attendees can view, listen to, and read presenter materials in advance of the regular sessions on the conference website. The regular sessions themselves will be primarily devoted to discussion among presenters and attendees. Keynote talks will also take place over Zoom, but there are no advance materials for these events.

The Zoom link for each session is posted to the password-protected page for that session on the conference website (see below for more information). There is no need to register for individual sessions ahead of time.

Please review the schedule as posted on the conference website to plan your participation, as some changes have been made in recent weeks.

How do I register for the conference?

Select the Registration tab of the conference website; simply enter your name and email address and hit submit. You will receive an automated email notification that includes the password to access all password-protected areas of the website. Please note that this message will not include the links to the Zoom sessions. See the next question for information about Zoom session links.

Where can I view the schedule
and the presentation materials themselves?

Visit the tab for each day of the conference (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4) for the daily schedule of presentations. Click on the title of a panel to be taken to the presentations (videos, podcasts, papers) themselves. Registrants will be prompted to enter a password. This password will have been sent to you automatically upon registration. If you have not received it or cannot find it, please contact RSVP’s Communications Coordinator, Alison Hedley.

Please view, listen to, and read presenter materials in advance of the session; presenters will not be giving full papers during the session, but will give a brief overview followed by Q&A discussion.

The link the Zoom room for each panel or event appears at the top of the password-protected page for this panel. Please note that there are different rooms/Zoom links for every event. When you click on the Zoom link at the beginning of the event, you will be directed to a Zoom waiting room; one of the session hosts (the chair or the tech assistant) will let you into the meeting.

We recommend having the most recent version of Zoom downloaded on your computer to limit technical hiccups.

For information on Zoom use and troubleshooting, please see Zoom’s video tutorials; to quickly find the answer to a specific question, use the search function of the Zoom Help Center.

What is the format of regular sessions?

Please review the schedule as posted on the conference website in case any changes have been made to a panel.

The sessions themselves are structured to facilitate engaging discussion. To listen to the full version of each paper, participants can access presenters’ materials in advance on the conference website (see above). Sessions will take the following format:

– The chair will introduce the speakers, their bios, and conference presentation titles
– Speakers will give a recap of their presentation in 5 minutes or less
– The chair will then open the floor to Q&A from audience members
– The panel will be 60 minutes in total

How do I chair the panel I’ve volunteered for?

Thank you for agreeing to chair a panel! Please be sure to read/view/listen to the presentations in your session in advance. If you have not already done so, email your session panelists to solicit brief biographical statements. You should have received an email from RSVP’s Communications Coordinator with information about how to contact panelists; please refer to this email or contact Alison Hedley.

Please review the schedule as posted on the conference website in case any changes have been made to your panel.  Plan to arrive at your session 15 minutes early so that one of the conference’s local organizers can make you a co-host of the Zoom room. This will give you essential administrative privileges, such as the abilities to enable screen sharing and adjust room settings if/as needed. Please see above for the format of regular sessions. Your role involves introducing panelists and sharing or reading their bios; moderating discussion, and keeping the session to time.

OPTIONAL: If you wish, you can copy and paste panelist bios into Zoom’s chat function rather than reading each statement aloud prior to each paper brief. If the session has many presenters, this option has the benefit of opening a bit more time for discussion. If your panel chooses this option, please let attendees know to look for presenter bios in the Zoom chat window.

Wherever possible, another RSVP member has volunteered to serve as a tech assistant/backup in your session in case of any problems with Zoom. Their duties are listed below. If you do not have tech backup and you run into Zoom tech issues: you may find your solution on the Zoom Help Center; otherwise, send a text message to +1 215-629-6773, clearly stating the session for which you require support.

How do I offer the Zoom assistance I have signed up for?

Thank you for offering Zoom assistance for a session! Please arrive 5-10 minutes early for the session so that a local organizer or the panel chair can make you a co-host.

Your role involves the following tasks:

– managing attendee questions that are posed in the chat function (jumping into discussion if/when appropriate to articulate these questions)
– adding any appropriate links in the session chat as needed (such as the link to the session webpage on the conference website)
– taking over for the chair if their wifi cuts out;
– any other tech troubleshooting you might be able to offer if needed (perhaps with assistance from the Zoom Help Center). For any major technical difficulties, please send a text message to +1 215-629-6773, clearly stating the session for which you require support.

Our Conference Registration is Now Open!

We’re thrilled to announce that registration for our 2021 virtual conference, “Revolution(s), Evolution(s), Circulation(s)” is now open! Registration is free for all attendees, though all presenters must be members of RSVP. Register for the conference on our conference website.

Once registered, participants should receive an email with the password to access all pre-recorded presentations on the conference website. If you do not receive an email or you did not receive a password because you pre-registered, please contact our conference hosts, Douglas Greenfield and Anna Peak, who will be happy to assist you.

How To Access Presentations

For each day (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4) of the conference, hover over the name of the panel, and click through to view the content. The conference includes a variety of formats, including written papers, audio recordings, and pre-recorded videos/slideshows. The conference schedule indicates what presentation modality each session will follow.

Please note that the website is still a work-in-progress as we receive late submissions. Also please note that, similar to previous years, sessions are subject to change.

How to Help Out

We still need a few volunteers to chair individual sessions. You can review the line-up and sign yourself up for a panel on this Google sign-up sheet. Thank you to everyone who has already volunteered!

How The Conference Will Proceed

The conference will hold virtual sessions via Zoom from 8-11 September at the times indicated on the conference schedule. Zoom links will be posted to each session’s individual web page as they become available. There is no need to “register” for individual sessions ahead of time.

The sessions themselves will focus on highly engaged discussion. Participants should access presenters’ materials in advance of the actual conference dates. Sessions will take the following format:

  • The chair will introduce the speakers, their bios, and conference presentation title
  • Speakers will give a 5-minute recap of their presentation
  • The chair will then open the floor to Q&A from audience members
  • The panel will be 60 minutes in total

We look forward to seeing you at this, our first-ever virtual conference!

Curran Index Seeks PT Paid Research Assistant

We are delighted to announce that The Curran Index is recruiting a part-time, paid research assistant to help the current editors, Dr. Emily Bell and Dr. Lara Atkin, to expand the attribution data that is currently incorporated into the Index.

The Role

A Research Assistant is required to undertake archival work examining the Chambers Journal ledgers at the National Library of Scotland. The ideal candidate will be based in easy travel distance of the NLS and will have a research background in Victorian periodical studies, either studying for a PhD or post-doctoral.

The Work

You will be expected to examine the Chambers’s Journal Ledgers, particularly the notebooks containing details of the cash payments made to authors for contributions to the journal and other work between 1839-1903. High quality scans of these ledgers should be taken, and a research report produced highlighting any attribution data gathered from the ledgers that could be integrated into The Curran Index.

You will work independently but report to Dr. Lara Atkin and Dr. Emily Bell, co-editors of The Curran Index. This job is suitable for an advanced postgraduate or postdoctoral ECR, with a background in archival work and periodical studies, who is based within commutable distance from the National Library of Scotland. The timings for the work are flexible and can be fitted around existing research and teaching commitments.

How To Apply

More information on how to apply and a full job description can be found on the job listing at the University of Kent website.

 If you have any further questions, please email Dr. Atkin.