Victorian Network: Literature and Science

Call for Papers: Victorian Literature and Science

The second issue of Victorian Network, guest edited by Dr Ian Henderson (King’s College London), seeks to showcase new research into the connections between Victorian literature and the sciences. Since the publication of Gillian Beer’s seminal Darwin’s Plots(1983), the study of Victorian science and literature as interrelated cultural practices has risen to be one of the largest and most dynamic fields within Victorian Studies. We are inviting submissions of no more than 7000 words that investigate the ways in which scientific disciplines, debates, practices and venues shaped the Victorian cultural imagination. A prize of £50 will be awarded to the best paper submitted. We reserve the right to withhold the prize.

Topics might include but are not limited to:

The shared forms, aesthetics and poetics of literary and scientific discourses
Victorian literature and nineteenth-century popular scientific entertainment
Gendered scientific practices in Victorian literature and culture
Science as a form of political / social critique in Victorian literature
Literary criticism and science in the Victorian period
Victorian culture and the imperial sciences
Literary and scientific modes of ordering knowledge
Affect and emotion in Victorian literature and science
We are also inviting postgraduates to present their research to a non-specialist readership by submitting short articles of circa 2000 words for our outreach page, Victorian Wire. The CfP and more details about the outreach project can be found on Victorian Wire. We are offering a prize of £25 to the best short article submitted. We reserve the right to withhold the prize.

All submissions should conform to MHRA style conventions and the in-house submission guidelines as set out here. The deadline for submissions to our next issue is December 1, 2009.

Please send submissions to: [email protected]