*The call for papers for AVSA 2020 has now been extended to 17 February*
"Small Worlds: Connections, Collaborations, and Conflicts"
Australasian Victorian Studies Association Conference
17-19 June 2020
Monash University, Melbourne (Clayton campus)
"Small Worlds: Connections, Collaborations, and Conflicts"
Australasian Victorian Studies Association Conference
17-19 June 2020
Monash University, Melbourne (Clayton campus)
Keynote speakers: Associate Professor Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Professor Lisa Surridge (University of
Victoria, Canada)
Technological advances, imperial expansion, emigration to the colonies and beyond, and an increase in leisure travel made the nineteenth-century world seem smaller. Fuelled by industrialisation, the population of cities boomed, putting masses of people in closer proximity than ever before. The development of transportation, particularly the railways and steamship, meant culture could be disseminated more widely. The various ways in which ideas and people moved aided by technology such as the telegraph enabled new connections, cultures, and ideas to flourish. However, encounters with the unfamiliar and challenges to accepted ways of being provoked anxieties, injustices, and outright conflict.
We invite papers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds including Literature, History, Music, and Art History that interpret any aspect of the nineteenth century in relation to the conference theme of “Small Worlds”.
Proposals might address such topics as the following:
Technological advances, imperial expansion, emigration to the colonies and beyond, and an increase in leisure travel made the nineteenth-century world seem smaller. Fuelled by industrialisation, the population of cities boomed, putting masses of people in closer proximity than ever before. The development of transportation, particularly the railways and steamship, meant culture could be disseminated more widely. The various ways in which ideas and people moved aided by technology such as the telegraph enabled new connections, cultures, and ideas to flourish. However, encounters with the unfamiliar and challenges to accepted ways of being provoked anxieties, injustices, and outright conflict.
We invite papers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds including Literature, History, Music, and Art History that interpret any aspect of the nineteenth century in relation to the conference theme of “Small Worlds”.
Proposals might address such topics as the following:
· Travelling, tourism and travel writing
· Urbanisation and the city
· Emigration
· Empires, nationalism, colonialism
· Race, ethnicity, indigeneity
· Literature and the periodical press
· Scientific and medical advancement
· Intellectual, artistic, and political communities
· Religion and missionary work
· The Victorian city
· Collaborative research within Victorian Studies
Paper proposals should comprise a
one-paragraph abstract of 200-250-words with a title plus a 100-word
biographical note. Please avoid the use of in-text references. Proposals should
be emailed to conference convenors Dr Michelle Smith and Associate Professor
Paul Watt and at michelle.smith@monash.edu by 17 February 2020 (final deadline).
All those giving a paper at the AVSA
conference are required to be members of the Association.
AVSA aims to promote the activities and research of scholars in Victorian literary, history, and cultural studies and since 1973 has provided a meeting place for Victorian Studies scholars in the southern hemisphere. To find out more about AVSA, visit its website at www.avsa.unimelb.edu.au
AVSA aims to promote the activities and research of scholars in Victorian literary, history, and cultural studies and since 1973 has provided a meeting place for Victorian Studies scholars in the southern hemisphere. To find out more about AVSA, visit its website at www.avsa.unimelb.edu.au
