“The Victorian Archive, Revisited and Reimagined”
May 27-30, 2023
York University's Keele campus, Toronto, Canada
“The Victorian Archive, Revisited and Reimagined” is a panel sponsored by NAVSA (the North American Victorian Studies Association) for the ACCUTE 2023 conference (the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English).
Organizers: Rachelle Stinson, York University, rstinson@yorku.ca; and Tina Y. Choi, York University, tinayc@yorku.ca
The deadline for ACCUTE has been extended to Thursday 24 November 2022.
Recent critical examinations into a wide range of materials – fiction written from and about Britain’s colonies, ship logs and scrapbooks, gardening manuals and private journals, etc. – have begun altering the landscape of Victorian studies.
In spirit they extend calls that emerged decades ago to expand the canon, but they raise more fundamental questions about the diversity of ways and locations in which texts were produced and consumed during the nineteenth century. They encourage us to look beyond England’s metropolitan centres, to regard print as an interactive rather than a static medium, and to see the Victorian archive as an evolving assemblage of texts and research possibilities.
The organizers invite proposals for 15- to 20-minute papers that combine critical analysis with methodological or theoretical reflection on the subject of the Victorian archive. What new lessons do a revisiting and reimagining of the archive impart, and what new directions for research do they offer? What alternate or untold narratives are uncovered? Proposals reflecting NAVSA’s multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary aims are especially welcome.
Please submit your proposal through the ACCUTE submission portal (as a Member-organized panel):