September 2016 newsletter

September Newsletter

  1. The President’s Message
  2. Evening Lectures 2016-17
  3. April 2017 Conference
  4. VSAO-ACCUTE Panels
  5. Report on VSAO-sponsored Panel at ACCUTE 2016
  6. New Titles by VSAO Members
  1. The President’s Message

The arrival of autumn marks the beginning of an especially exciting new year for the VSAO, as we plan for the celebration of our golden anniversary in 2017. Indeed, even as we look back on fifty successful, productive years (and we invite you to browse our archives to read about them), we also have much to look forward to, with lectures by four distinguished speakers from the fields of History, Art History, Education, and English.

We invite members both new and old to celebrate the Association’s anniverary — to toast its good health, and many happy returns — by joining us for these events!

Tina Young Choi, President

  1. Evening Lectures

Our fall evening lecture features Professor Cecilia Morgan (OISE and History, University of Toronto), a social and cultural historian whose published work has examined aspects of Empire, particularly transoceanic travel and the settler colonies in the nineteenth century. For her lecture on Tuesday 15 November 2016, she will speak to us about her current SSHRC-funded research on English-Canadian actresses who enjoyed transatlantic careers at the turn of the century.

For our winter evening lecture on Thursday 2 March 2017, Professor Jordan Bear (Art History, University of Toronto) will draw on his expertise in early photography and the intersections between nineteenth- and twentieth-century visual and scientific cultures.

Details about both lectures, with locations and directions, will be advertised through our listserv and also posted to our Events page.

  1. April 2017 Conference

We are in the thick of planning for our 50th annual conference, which will take place on Saturday 29 April 2017. We’re delighted to announce that our keynote speakers will be Professors Jason Camlot (English, Concordia University) and Seth Koven (History, Rutgers University). Professor Camlot, the author of Style and the Nineteenth-Century British Critic and other critical works on poetry, as well as of several collections of his own poetry, is currently completing a work entitled, Phonopoetics: Approaches to Early Spoken Recordings, a study of early sound technologies. Professor Koven, the author of Slumming: Social and Sexual Politics in Victorian London and of The Match Girl and the Heiress, which received the “Best Book of the Year” award from the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) and the 2015 Stansky Prize for the Best Book in Modern British Studies by the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS), is currently co-director of a research initiative, “Ethical Subjects: Moralities, Laws, Histories,” at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis.

A call-for-proposals for a set of papers for the morning panel will be issued this fall.

  1. VSAO-ACCUTE Panels

We are currently seeking proposals for the VSAO panel at the 2017 ACCUTE Conference at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto. Our theme, in honour of our own upcoming anniversary, is Many Happy Returns: The Anniversary in Victorian Britain. The deadline for submissions is 1 November. The full text of that call is available on our CFP page.

  1. Report on VSAO-sponsored Panel at ACCUTE 2016

The VSAO made two very successful appearances on the program for the 2016 ACCUTE Conference in Calgary. Katherine Magyarody and Noa Reich, both outgoing members of our executive, organized a pair of panels on Victorians Faking It: Fraud in Form and Fiction. Panel chairs Amy Coté and Elissa Gurman report that both were well-attended and well-received. Thanks to our panel organizers, chairs, and speakers, as well as those who attended these events.

  1. New Titles by VSAO Members

It gives us great pleasure to recognize our members’ productivity. Congratulations to these three on their recently published volumes!

Global Spencerism: The Communication and Appropriation of a British Evolutionist. Ed. Bernard Lightman. Leiden: Brill, 2015.   

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Diaries, Journals, and Notebooks. Ed. Lesley Higgins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Scribe: Archibald Lampman and Episkopon, A Facsimile Edition. Ed. D.M.R. Bentley. London: Canadian Poetry Press, 2015.