International Interdisciplinary Conference
Tennyson 2026: Ecology, Landscape, Environment
Lincoln, UK
July 14-17, 2026

Abstract Deadline: January 31, 2026

Sponsored by the Tennyson Society and Bishop Grosseteste University, this interdisciplinary conference will convene in Lincolnshire, the landscape into which Tennyson was born (see https://tennysonsociety.com/tennyson-2026-conference.)

Tennyson’s poetry was central in forming Victorian responses to the natural world and to scientific advances which underpin today’s emerging fields of environmental studies and plant humanities, as well as interdisciplinary studies of literature and science, literary geographies, literature and the arts, and literature and print culture. His evocative idyllic settings inspired painters from the Pre-Raphaelites to Edward Lear, while his struggles with evolutionary theory engaged with a different vision of ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw’. His poetic sonorities inspired new soundscapes in music and even later film adaptations. This will be a timely opportunity to explore the varied legacies left to us by the Victorians and their Poet Laureate, and to assess their relevance to the global climate and social justice crises of today.

Our conference welcomes proposals that range widely, from geology to garden design, from the celebration of landscape to warfare and the destruction of landscape, from the minutiae of the ‘Flower in the Crannied Wall’ to the ‘Vastness’ of Space, from the threat of industrialisation and global capitalism to the promise of a utopian future, from imperial land-grabbing to the preservation of local identities and dialects.

Possible topics (among others):

• Science and Evolution
• Neo-Victorian Afterlives   
• Industrialization, Pollution, Extractive Capitalism   
• Landscape and Gender, Sexuality
• Sites of Devastation, War, and Warfare
• Environment and Psychology
• Dialect, Regionalism, and the Sense of Place
• Poetry’s Periodical and Print Ecologies
• Walking, Walking Tours, and Poetry
• The Lives of Flora and/or Fauna
• Ecologies, Landscapes, and Race 
• Class Hierarchies, Law, and Land Inheritance
• Tennyson and “Nature Poets”
• Tennyson and the Arts, Sculpture, Architecture
• Tennyson and Ruskin, Morris, Meredith, Hardy
• Tennyson, Music, and Soundscapes
• Tennyson & L.E.L., E. Brontë, EBB, C. Rossetti
• Tennyson’s Personal and Literary Networks
• Tennyson and Horticulture, Gardens, Farming
• Tennyson and the Sea
• Tennyson, Imperialism, and Foreign Lands
• Cemeteries, Waste, Dust
• Poetry and the Cosmos
• Plant Humanities

Keynote Speakers
Dinah Birch, “Tennyson and Ruskin: Versions of the Modern”; Clare Pettitt, “Tennyson's Garden: Idylls of the King and the Technologization of Nature”; Lindsay Wells, “Tennyson, Horticulture, and the Plant Humanities”

Abstracts should be 300 words maximum, with a bio (150 words maximum).
Address inquiries and submit proposals as attachments to Tennyson2026@bishopg.ac.uk.

Sponsors’ support has enabled a very affordable conference rate, with affordable housing as well.