Northeast Victorian Studies Association
2001 Conference
CALL FOR PAPERS
VICTORIAN NOCTURNES
27th Annual Meeting: April 27-29, 2001 at Brown University, Providence,
RI
How did the Victorians or their world change when the sun went
down? What were Victorian fears, nightmares, dreams and fantasies about
the night? What technologies developed to light up the night, and what
kinds of nightlife occurred? How did Victorian art forms embrace nocturnes
and the nocturnal?
For its 27th annual conference, the Northeast Victorian Studies
Association looks forward to sleepwalking through the dark half of the
day, in search of the awakenings and enlightenments that seeing how a
culture deals with darkness brings. The topic includes, in addition the
genre of nocturne in music, painting and poetry and Victorian
conceptualizations about the night, but also more quotidian, so to speak,
licit and illicit nocturnal activities of the period.
Topics include (but are not limited to):
Papers on hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares and desires: nocturnal
pleasures, incubi and succubi, nocturnal emissions (inevitably), moonlight
and full moon events (lunacy, moon mythology), real and imaginary night
creatures, dark nights of the soul, things that go bump in the night,
Gothic nights, vampires, goblins, etc., Victorian taboos and obscurities.
The sciences of the night: seeing in the dark and Victorian
synthaesthesia, astronomy and its tools (telescopes, spectroscopes, etc.);
lighting technologies from candles through gas lights and electricity
(gaslighting as well for those who dont respect categories), the
interpretation of dreams, night photography.
Night life: night work and the graveyard shift; night crimes, night
rhythms, night passions; living arrangements: beds, overnight
accommodations, the architectural disposition of sleeping spaces,
overnight mails; night entertainments, theater, pleasure gardens, balls,
mesmerism, seances, etc.
Art at night: Nocturnes in music and painting (Whistlers nocturnes,
Turner), night poetry (Thomsons City of Dreadful Night, Dowsons Grey
Nights, Brownings Meeting at Night, etc.), The Thousand and One Nights and
Burtons translation, the continuing hold of the Victorian and
particularly London night on modern film and fiction.
Paper Proposals (no more than two double-spaced pages) by Oct. 15, to:
Professor Jonah Siegel
Dept. of English
Murray Hall
510 George St.
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Fax (attn: Jonah Siegel): (732)932-1150
Email: jsiegel@rci.rutgers.edu
Please do not send complete papers. Please do not include your name on
your proposal: we review proposals
anonymously. Please do include your name, institutional and email
addresses, and proposal title in the cover letter that accompanies the
proposal.
Finished papers should take 15 minutes (20 minutes maximum) so as to
provide ample time for discussion following each panel.
Roundtable: In an attempt to allow more participation in the program, we
are continuing the popular roundtable discussions on pedagogy that we
initiated four years ago. This year we would like to focus on the
connections and disjunctions between teaching and research: how does one
drive the other? How has your teaching and the curriculum in general
changed in response to directions in current scholarship? If you would
like to make a presentation, please send a note to Professor Paula Krebs,
Department of English, Wheaton College, Norton, Mass. 02766 (fax:
(508)286-8263; email: pkrebs@wheatonma.edu) describing briefly (no more
than one double-spaced page) the aspects of pedagogy that you would like
to share. Keep in mind that being a presenter means creating an atmosphere
for stimulating discussion rather than presenting a paper.
The Coral Lansbury Travel Grant ($100.00) and George Ford Travel Grant
($100.00), given in memory of key founding members of NVSA, are awarded
annually to the graduate student, adjunct instructor, or independent
scholar who must travel the greatest distance to give a paper at our
conference. Apply by indicating in the cover letter of your proposal that
you wish to be considered. Mention also if you have other sources of
funding.
All who wish to join NVSA, and all members who have not yet paid their
dues for the 2000-2001 membership year should return the attached
tear-off. And Dr. Hartley Spatt (24 Center Street, Woodmere, NY, 111598)
urges all members to send him a note subscribing to the Victorian Studies
Bulletin ($5.00 a year).
Finally, as many of you know, our Vice-President for Information Services,
Professor Glenn Everett has established a NVSA list (NVSA-L) on email and
a NVSA Home Page on the World Wide Web (http://fmc.utm.edu/nvsa/). The Web
site offers items of interest to NVSA members. NVSA-L is a place to
summarize and share conference activities and logistics, and to conduct
NVSA business. Its used mainly around conference time, so dont worry that
it will clutter up your mailboxes. To subscribe, send a message to
ListProc@utm.edu. Leave the subject line blank; on the message line write
SUB NVSA-L your first and last name.
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From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
CFP@english.upenn.edu
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http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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