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CFP: “Victorian Spaces: Real and Imagined” (11/15/2017; 5/26-29/2018)

Posted by on Sep 17, 2017

“Victorian Spaces: Real and Imagined”
VSAO-Sponsored ACCUTE Joint Session for the Humanities Congress at the University of Regina
26-29 May 2018

The Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (VSAO) and the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE) invite papers for a jointly sponsored session on "Victorian Spaces: Real and Imagined." From haunted attics, to enchanted flower beds, to housing reform, Victorians were deeply preoccupied with new conceptions of space. Their penchant for exploring the shifting role of the production of space can be seen as deriving from historical spatial forms, such as architecture, urban philanthropic projects and social-improvement publications. In another sense, such spatial conceptions can be seen as having been represented culturally, whether through the imagined landscapes of Alice’s wonder-filled garden afternoon, Pip’s navigation of London, or the Pre-Raphaelites’ reconceiving of medievalist spaces as contemporary portals. The Victorian Studies Association of Ontario invites papers that consider the ways in which space was imagined, represented and conceived during this historical moment, exploring the ways in which both real and imagined spaces often converged on a proverbial continuum of representations. Papers might examine how real or physical spaces were manifested, planned and represented by Victorians as they conceived of and interacted with spatial theories and formations in myriad modes and discourses. Others may inquire as to the ways in which the spaces Victorians imagined are potentially seen as cultural representations of their collective affective lives, their utopian forecasts, their escapist dreamscapes and their socio-political and imperial constructions and agendas. Possible themes might include but are not limited to:

  • Social, legal, and/or political histories of space, both urban and rural
  • Spatial theory
  • Genre and space (social reform novels, sentimental fiction, popular press narratives, children’s literature, Romantic painting, utopia/dystopia, etc.)
  • Visual and print culture’s imagined spaces such as traditional visual forms (photography, architecture, painting) and non-traditional visual forms (ephemera, cartography, games, advertising, etc.)
  • Landscapes, gardens, ecocriticism
  • Medical, corporeal and scientific histories
  • Architectural spaces
  • Factories, social reform, cultural geography
  • Supernatural spaces: occultist practices, haunted houses, séance rooms, afterlives
  • Film, video, digital and new media criticism as well as criticism on contemporary visual artists and writers whose historically-minded practices engage with Victorian conceptions of space
  • Spaces of Empire: race, travel, histories, transnational and translocal contexts
  • Interior design histories and design print culture (catalogues, pamphlets, journals, magazines)

    • Please send an email attachment of your 300-to-500-word paper proposal, without personal identifying marks, and the 2018 Proposal Info Sheet available on the ACCUTE website, to l.young@queensu.ca and ejrothwell@gmail.com by November 15, 2017.

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