CFP: AVSA 2019, 25-29 September, Otago University (deadline 1 April)

The University of Otago was founded in 1869. This was a year in which many scientific, political, commercial, cultural and medical milestones were also recorded, including the first issue of Nature, the opening of the Suez Canal, the publication of the Periodic Table, Paul Langerhans’s discovery of pancreatic islets and the appearance of “The Subjection of Women” by John Stuart Mill.

The Centre for Research on Colonial Culture and the Australasian Victorian Studies Association warmly invite you to join them in critically reflecting on these various approaches to knowledge creation and production during the 1860s and beyond, and across disciplines as well as cultures in all areas of human endeavour. Confirmed keynote speakers include Professor Marion Thain (King’s College London) and Megan Potiki (University of Otago), alongside invited speakers Dr Tina Makereti (Massey University), Lisa Chatfield (Producer, The Luminaries) and Professor Liam McIlvanney (University of Otago), with more to be announced!

The conference will combine a traditional academic programme with a range of public heritage festival events, special forums and social  engagements. We invite paper, panel and poster proposals from researchers, policy makers, industry and anyone with an 1869-related story to tell that addresses the conference theme from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Cross-disciplinary panels would be particularly welcomed.

Topics linked to the legacies of Victorian scientific and cultural production include:
• Indigenous knowledges;
• Literary production;
• Colonialism and its legacies;
• Museums, archives and collecting;
• Medical innovation;
• Ecology and the environment;
• Migration, movement, and mobilities;
• Artefacts and archaeological records;
• Mass tourism and popularisation of leisure;
• Scientific advancements;
• Commercial and economic development;
• Art, fashion and design;
• Architecture and built environments;
• Conflict, contestation and resistance;
• Crime and sensation.

Papers: 250-300 word abstract, up to 5 keywords and 50-word biographical statement.
Panels: Panel proposals for three linked papers are encouraged to include presenters from more than one disciplinary background, and from different career stages. 250-300 word individual abstracts, 50-word biographical statements for each presenter, accompanied by a 200 word summary of the overarching theme(s) of the panel.
Posters:
Posters will be on display for the duration of the conference and there will be a timetabled slot for contributors to stand by their  posters so that participants can come and discuss the research.
250-300 word abstract, up to 5 keywords and 50-word biographical statement

Please submit proposals as Word attachments to the conference email address: 1869@otago.ac.nz by 1 April 2019.
Decisions on acceptance will be made by early May, with registration opening in June.

Keep up to date with the latest news and announcements via our Twitter account: @Otago1869

CFP: "Family Ties" Symposium, 12-14 February 2017, University of Otago, Dunedin

Adam Walker and  His Family by George Romney (1796-1801)
(c) National Portrait Gallery, London

Family Ties: Exploring Kinship and Creative Production in Nineteenth-Century Britain
12-14 February 2017, Dunedin New Zealand

Plenary Speakers:
Judith Pascoe, University of Iowa
Devoney Looser, Arizona State University

Conference website

In 1800, poet and playwright Joanna Baillie dedicated her Series of Plays to her physician brother Matthew Baillie for his “unwearied zeal and brotherly partiality”; Matthew himself had recently edited the anatomical research of their uncles, John and William Hunter. At century’s end, Oscar Wilde cited his mother Jane Wilde’s translation of Sidonia the Sorceress (1849) and his great-uncle Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) as his “favourite romantic reading when a boy.” Family played an important role in the literary and artistic productions of the long nineteenth century, from the Burneys to the Brontës, and the Rossettis to the Doyles. Critical approaches ranging from Noel Annan’s “Intellectual Aristocracy” to Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory have provided useful ways of assessing and contextualising the role of family in the creative production of writers and artists, but still the role of the family remains underexplored.

Invitation for submissions
We invite submissions for “Family Ties,” a three-day symposium at the University of Otago and Otago Museum focused on British literary and artistic families in the nineteenth century. Topics for 20-minute papers might include:

Interdisciplinary Influences
Collaborations and/or Dissents
Authorial Identity/ies
Communities and Networks
Families and Emotions
Redefining Family Units
Stages of Life (births, marriages, deaths)
Reimaginings of nineteenth-century families
Families, Creativity, and Empire
Economics of Family Authorship
Literary and Artistic Legacies
Little-known Relations
Generational Influences
Please send abstracts of 250-300 words by 15 November to Dr Thomas McLean and Dr Ruth Knezevich at familyties@otago.ac.nz.

The symposium coincides with “Keeping it in the Family: British and Irish Literary Generations 1770-1930,” an exhibition at Otago’s Special Collections, and precedes the 16–19 February RSAA conference in Wellington, New Zealand. There are direct flights between Dunedin and Wellington, and we hope many participants will attend both events. “Family Ties” is made possible by generous support from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund. It will be an opportunity to share the first results of the three-year Marsden funded project, “Global Romantics: How the Porter Family Shaped Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature.”