CFP: “Lord Byron and Rights” Special Session at 2015 NASSR Conference (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 13-16 August 2015)

Tom Berenato

Lord Byron and Rights

The Byron Society of America

Open-Call Special Session 

Organizer: Alexander Grammatikos, Carleton University

Lord Byron was a passionate and life-long defender of people’s rights. In the House of Lords he argued for the right of Catholics to be represented in parliament; in his personal correspondence he supported writers’ claims to copyright over their own works; and in a decision that led to his death, he travelled to Greece to help the Greeks realize their right to become an independent nation. His preoccupation with rights extended to his poetic works, too. For example, in Sardanapalus, the misguided but well-meaning titular leader laments “To me war is no glory—conquest no / Renown. To be forced thus to uphold my right / Sits heavier on my heart than all the wrongs / These men would bow me down with” (4.1.5.505-8). Here, in but just one example from Byron’s oeuvre, the poet demonstrates his keen understanding of the often relative nature of “rights” (for a king to retain his, he required war and conquest) and the personal price one had to pay to uphold them.

Complementing NASSR’s broader theme of “Romanticism and Rights,” we invite proposals that consider Byron’s engagement with “rights.” Submissions may include, but are not limited to:

  • Byron and the right to freedom of religion
  • Byron and the right to national independence
  • Byron and animal rights
  • Byron and authorial rights
  • Byron and the right to sexual and gender expression
  • Byron and the right to freedom of speech
  • Byron and the rights of the disenfranchised and poor
  • Byron and Eastern rights
  • Byron and female rights

Proposals for papers should be a maximum of 350 words and be proposals for 20-minute papers.

All proposals must include your name, academic affiliation (if any), and preferred email address. Include the name of the session (“Lord Byron and Rights”) either on your proposal itself or in the accompanying email.

Submit proposals by 17 January 2015 to nassr15@umanitoba.ca.

See http://nassr2015.wordpress.com/ for more details about the conference.

BSA at SAMLA: “Creating and Sustaining Byron” (November 8th, Atlanta)

Andrew Stauffer

The BSA is sponsoring the follow panel at the annual South Atlantic Modern Language Association convention in Atlanta Georgia (with thanks to Lindsey Eckert at Georgia State University for organizing!):

“CREATING AND SUSTAINING BYRON”

Saturday, November 8th  – 8:00 AM
Chair: Lindsey Eckert, Georgia State University

1. From the Ashes: Byron’s Memoirs and Moore’s Reconstruction of Byron – Jeffery Vail, Boston University

2. Evolving Attitudes Toward the Byronic Hero: From Childe Harold to Rochester – Samantha Crain, San Jose State University

3. Creating Modern Adventure: The Byronic Hero in the Romance Revival of the 1880s – Michael Jones, University of Connecticut

CFP: “Byron and Italy,” The Byron Centre, Manchester UK (Dec. 4-5, 2014)

Andrew Stauffer

Call for papers

 ‘Byron and Italy’

 

The Byron Centre

University of Manchester

Thursday 4 – Friday 5 December 2014 

 

The Byron Centre at the University of Manchester, in collaboration with the Centro Interuniversitario per lo Studio del Romanticismo at the University of Parma, invites paper proposals for an interdisciplinary conference on the topic of ‘Byron and Italy’, to be held at the University of Manchester, 4-5 December 2014. Papers are welcome from any disciplinary perspective that opens up new approaches to, or offers new insights into, any aspect of the conference theme, including, for example:

 

  • Byron and the Italian poets (Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Pulci, Casti …);
  • Byron and Alfieri;
  • Byron and Rome / Venice / Ravenna / Pisa / Milan …;
  • Byron and the idea of Italy;
  • Byron and Italian landscapes/cityscapes;
  • Byron’s (self-)Italianisation;
  • Byron’s relationships with Italians;
  • Byron and Catholicism;
  • Byron and the Carbonari / the Risorgimento / Italy as a nation;
  • Byron and the Austrians in Italy;
  • Byron and Italian art;
  • Byron and Italian history;
  • Byron and the dialectics of Italian antiquity and modernity;
  • Byron’s relation to other British/continental writers on Italy;
  • Byron’s Italianised relations with Britain;
  • Byron and the Italian language;
  • Byron’s influence on Italian culture.

 

 

Please email abstracts of 250 words maximum to The Byron Centre’s Director, Dr Alan Rawes (alan.rawes@manchester.ac.uk), by 15 September 2014.

BSA at MLA 2015

Andrew Stauffer

As an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association, the Byron Society of America sponsors a Byron session at the annual convention of the MLA, held annually in January (previously December) of each year.  If you like, read a 40-year history of the BSA at the MLA convention.

MLA Convention Session 2015

BYRON NOW

Vancouver, B.C.

Saturday, 10 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 112, VCC West

Presiding: Matthew Borushko (Stonehill College)

1. Jerome McGann (University of Virginia), “Lyric Writing in a Byronic Perspective”

2. Evan Gottlieb (Oregon State University), “George Gordon Lord Network“

3. Gary Dyer (Cleveland State University), “Byron’s Posterity”

CFP: “Creating and Sustaining Byron,” SAMLA 2014

Andrew Stauffer

Below please see the CFP for the Byron Society of America’s affiliated panel at the South Atlantic MLA Conference, November 7-9, 2014. SAMLA is know for being a particularly vibrant regional MLA conference and takes place in Atlanta. This year’s conference theme is “Sustainability and the Humanities.” More information about the conference can be found here: https://samla.memberclicks.net/conference

 

 

CFP: “Creating and Sustaining Byron” hosted by the Byron Society of America, SAMLA Conference 2014

This panel seeks papers that address the creating and sustaining of “Byron” throughout the nineteenth century. Especially welcome are proposals addressing fictional representations ofByron and Byronic figures in works such as Glenarvon and The Vampyre, memoirs about Byron by figures like Lady Blessington or Thomas Medwin, piracies and satires of Byron’s work, the circulation of images of Byron in prints and portraits, and the editing of Byron’s works. By June 15, 2014, please send a 300-word abstract, a one-page CV, and A.V requirements to Lindsey Eckert, Georgia State University, LEckert@gsu.edu

Two New Reviews of Interest to Byronists

Andrew Stauffer

Two reviews that might interest Byronists;

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/05/the-volcano-that-rewrote-history.html — on a new book on the eruption of Tambora in 1815 [and its effect on that Geneva Summer of 1816]

 

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1405325.ece

 

Review of Andrew McConnell Stott
THE VAMPYRE FAMILY
Passion, envy and the curse of Byron
464pp. Canongate. £25.
978 1 84767 871 3

Geoffrey Bond
LORD BYRON’S BEST FRIENDS
From bulldogs to Boatswain and beyond
120pp. Nick Hugh McCann. £25.
978 0 9516891 1 8