Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies

 

Seventeenth Northern Victorian Studies Colloquium

18th March 2006 at Trinity & All Saints, Leeds

 

Victorian Space(s)

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The concept of 'place', once so evocative of stability and permanence, has increasingly come to be questioned, because, as Maclean, Landry and Ward observe, 'no place can ever be wholly abstracted from the social relationships, capital flows, cultural representations, and global forces that later-twentieth-century theorists have come to call 'space'.'

This colloquium aims to bring together those who look at the construction and constitution of 'space' as the Victorians understood and experienced it, especially those spaces relating to the creation of a wider Victorian community. Papers might tackle: Victorian understandings and explorations of the natural world, literal and literary border crossings, the imposition of new spaces within empire and the processes of colonisation that included 'exploration' and mapping, the institutions that gave rise to new built environments, the transitional spaces, and gendered spaces. In other words, the 'spaces': multiple and contingent that went to make up the Victorian.

Proposals (300 words) are invited for papers that deal with any aspect of the conception of 'space(s)' in the Victorian period, or the interaction between the Victorians and their built and natural environments. Papers that adopt a comparative frame, shifting across the normal boundaries are especially sought, but studies with a narrower focus with an interest in the wider context are also welcome. Deadline 31st October 2005.

A selection of papers will be published as Volume VIII of the Leeds Working Papers in Victorian Studies, and distributed to all participants. (Papers for inclusion in the volume of Working Papers will be expected in full by 15th December 2005). Please send proposals to:

 

 

Karen Sayer, Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, Trinity & All Saints, Brownberrie Lane, Leeds, LS18 5HD; e-mail k.sayer@leedstrinity.ac.uk, Tel. 0113 2837212.