British and Romantic Victorian Cultures

2009 Conference Information
Midwest Victorian Studies Association


Theme: Tipping Points: Pivotal Moments in Victorian Culture
2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. In commemoration of that epochal event, MVSA's 2009 annual meeting will explore events or works that signal profound shifts—“tipping points”—in one or more elements of the artistic, literary, musical, political, social, religious, or intellectual life of Britain and its empire during the long nineteenth century.

Keynote speakers:


Jonathan Smith is Professor of English at University of Michigan-Dearborn and author of Charles Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture (Cambridge UP). He is also guest editor of a forthcoming 2009 special issue of Victorian Studies titled “Darwin and the Evolution of Victorian Studies"
Ivan Kreilkamp is Associate Professor of English at University of Indiana-Bloomington. He is co-editor of Victorian Studies and the inaugural winner of the MVSA First Book Prize for Voice and the Victorian Storyteller (Cambridge UP).
How to submit:
By October 31, 2008, please email a 500-word (max.) abstract and 1-page c.v. to conferencesubmissions@midwestvictorian.org. Please include your own name, title, institution, email and snail mail addresses, a phone number, and the abstract itself in the text and/or attachment. If you do not receive an email confirmation of receipt, please re-submit. For a complete copy of the call for papers, click here.

Location:
The 2009 conference will be held in Richmond, Indiana. Founded in 1806 and situated along the historic “Old National Road,” Richmond was pivotal in the nineteenth-century American expansion to the west. Part of the conference will be held in a nineteenth-century Quaker meeting house (now a historical museum), the rest on the campus of Indiana University East, the newest regional campus of IU. Richmond is situated along I-70 near the Ohio border and therefore accessible to most Midwestern car travelers, as well as convenient to the Dayton, Ohio, airport 36 miles away.