This is a joint event, hosted by the Byron Society and Byron Society of America. Join us for a lively conversation in which Bernard Beatty and Jerome McGann will discuss their new books on Byron with one another and the audience: Beatty’s Reading Byron and McGann’s Byron and the Poetics of Adversity. Hosted by Emily Paterson-Morgan and Andrew Stauffer.
In July 1823, Byron embarked upon his ill-fated trip to Greece. Although this trip resulted in his death at the age of 36, it also redeemed a somewhat tarnished reputation and forever immortalised him as the poet of liberty and revolution. Instead of a degenerate exile living in jaded Italian debauchery with a menagerie of animals and a string of mistresses, Byron was transformed into a globally-recognised freedom fighter, willing to sacrifice everything to challenge oppression and tyranny. 1823 also saw the continuation of Byron’s provocative and controversial poetic activities with the publication of Heaven and Earth and ‘The Blues’ in The Liberal, the writing of The Island, and the completion of Canto 16 of Don Juan.
The 2023 Newstead Abbey Byron Conference will therefore focus on the themes of independence and integrity in Byron’s life and works. Topics can include but are not restricted to:
Byron and Greece
Invasion and defence
Democracy and despotism
Questions of morality and immorality
British radicalism and revolution
State control and State corruption
Byron’s use of non-traditional poetic modes
Byron and the Blessingtons
Byron and Teresa Guiccioli
Byron, Hunt and The Liberal.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words can be sent to Dr Emily Paterson-Morgan (newsteadbyronconference@gmail.com) by 31st January 2023.
The Byron Society will be offering 4 bursaries of £250 each to enable students, postgraduates and early career researchers to attend and present at the conference. If you would like to apply for a bursary, please include a short application statement outlining your biography, your career stage and status, and reasons for requesting the bursary, and send this with your presentation abstract to the conference organiser.
This stunning video of the new Byron Museum in Messolonghi, Greece comes to us from Rosa Rodanthe-Florou of the Messolonghi Byron Society. Looking forward to touring the space and seeing the exhibits at the International Student Byron Conference in May 2022!
FRIDAY, 7 JANUARY 8:30 AM-9:45 AM, SCARLET OAK (MARRIOTT MARQUIS)
AV Equipment: Projector and Speakers
Keywords: Byron, Romanticism, British, Nineteenth Century, Poetry
Sponsoring Entity: Byron Society of America
How do we read and teach Byron’s long poems, especially Don Juan, and what reading strategies are most productive and relevant to his work? Panelists center on a discussion of specific stanzas of Byron’s Don Juan, emphasizing the connections among poetics, thematics, and the larger cultural contexts and theoretical concerns of the Romantic era.
We are happy to announce the new dates for the 46th International Byron Conference which was postponed due to covid-19 concerns. The conference will coincide with the 200th Anniversary of the Greek War of Independence of 1821, a landmark event that will be celebrated throughout the country.
Please note that the Call for Papers has opened again. The new deadline for abstracts is 31 January 2021. The exact format of the conference will be decided in the next few months and relevant information will be posted on the conference website as we go forward.
Delegates who had their proposals accepted are kindly requested to confirm their intention to participate by 31 January 2021 to our dedicated email address: byronthess@gmail.com
We very much hope that you will join us for this rescheduled event!
From the organizers of the 2020 IABS Conference at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki:
We re regret to announce that it has been necessary to postpone the International Byron Conference in Thessaloniki scheduled for 29 June-5 July 2020 as part of measures related to COVID-19. We hope that it will be possible to run the conference in late June/early July 2021.The new dates will be announced in due course.
The spirit of Romantic Bicentennials continues as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of the first cantos of Byron’s Don Juan.
Join The Byron Society of America and The Keats-Shelley Association for a symposium featuring keynote lectures by Jerome McGann, Clara Tuite, Alice Levine, and Peter Graham. Offering a unique blend of younger and established scholars, the conference converges for two days in Chicago at DePaul University and The Chicago History Museum. The conference will bring together scholars from a wide range of backgrounds––Australia, Greece, and North America––to explore the origin of Byron’s poem and its cultural value in the 21st century. At a time when free speech has become more important than ever, Byron’s Don Juan stands as a monument to the importance of literature in showing that words are things, and that writers can indeed speak truth to power.
Byron’s poem will be interpreted by poststructuralists, New Historicists, feminists, inter-disciplinary and formalist scholars, with essays offered on Lady Byron, Ada Lovelace, Rap music, Opera, and many other subjects. The conference explores Byron’s poem as a conjunction of the high and low brow, blending gossip from Regency Court trials with allusions to Homer’s Odyssey, the Ten Commandments on the one hand, and the dangers of moral self-satisfaction on the other.
Beyond the conference presentations, music will be performed on Saturday, as the conference moves to the Chicago History Museum, founded in 1856, with its rich array of Chicago lore and an Art Deco theatre. Participants will hear papers presented in a venue opposite the Art Institute of Chicago where Delacroix’s “The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan” is housed (Friday), and listen to Liszt, Chopin, and selections from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” provided by the DePaul School of Music at the Chicago History Museum (Saturday).
No conference registration fees!
Conference begins 9am 18th October at DePaul University, Daley building, 14 East Jackson Blvd., Room 805
