The Twenty-First International Thomas Hardy Conference and Festival
University of Hull
Dorchester, UK
July 26 – August 3, 2014
July 26 – August 3, 2014
Deadline: February 24, 2014
The 2014 International Thomas Hardy Conference falls in the centenary of the start of the First World War (4th August, 1914), which led Hardy to declare that he had “lost all belief in the gradual ennoblement of man”. Furthermore “he would probably not have ended The Dynasts as he did end it if he could have foreseen what was going to happen within a few years” (Life and Work: 368). 2014 is also the centenary of the publication of Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries which featured the magisterial “Poems of 1912-13” inspired by the sudden death of his first wife Emma.
The 2014 International Thomas Hardy Conference falls in the centenary of the start of the First World War (4th August, 1914), which led Hardy to declare that he had “lost all belief in the gradual ennoblement of man”. Furthermore “he would probably not have ended The Dynasts as he did end it if he could have foreseen what was going to happen within a few years” (Life and Work: 368). 2014 is also the centenary of the publication of Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries which featured the magisterial “Poems of 1912-13” inspired by the sudden death of his first wife Emma.
Like its predecessors the Twenty-First International Hardy Conference is designed to appeal to new, established and independent Hardy scholars, and to the lay readers who attend in large numbers. Confirmed speakers include Professor Christopher Ricks, Professor John Paul Riquelme, Dr Marion Thain, Dr Mary Rimmer, Dr Tony Fincham, Professor Tim Kendall, Helen Gibson (Curator of the Hardy Collection at the Dorset County Museum), and Professor Tom McAlindon.
This year postgraduate papers will be incorporated into the general panel sessions although there will be chance to discuss your work informally in two separate postgraduate forums. The academic sessions will be supplemented by a wide variety of excursions and entertainments relating to the local context, which Hardy’s work celebrated, and from which it emerged. There will also be a repeat of the successful creative writing workshop, led this year by the landscape poet John Maxwell Clarke, with the possibility of having your work published in the peer reviewed Thomas Hardy Journal.
The committee is soliciting papers from Hardy scholars across the world for a series of twenty-minute talks in eight chaired panel session, which may address the anniversaries mentioned above, or any other aspect of Hardy’s life and work. The committee is particularly keen to include papers that address how the study of Hardy’s work can facilitate understanding and communication within, between and across different cultures.
Proposals should be sent by email to: hardyconf2014@hull.ac.ukor by post to: ‘Call for Papers’ (Thomas Hardy Festival and Conference)
Dr. Jane Thomas, Department of English
University of Hull, East Yorkshire HU6 7RX
All submissions will be read and adjudicated by an academic panel. The closing date is February 28, 2014.
The best of the papers given at the Conference will be eligible for publication in the peer-reviewed Thomas Hardy Journal appearing in Autumn 2014.
Proposals should be sent by email to: hardyconf2014@hull.ac.ukor by post to: ‘Call for Papers’ (Thomas Hardy Festival and Conference)
Dr. Jane Thomas, Department of English
University of Hull, East Yorkshire HU6 7RX
All submissions will be read and adjudicated by an academic panel. The closing date is February 28, 2014.
The best of the papers given at the Conference will be eligible for publication in the peer-reviewed Thomas Hardy Journal appearing in Autumn 2014.