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I am looking to put together a panel on the subject of suicide in the Romantic period for the 23rd North American Society for the Study of Romanticism which will take place in Winnipeg, Manitoba from August 13 to 16, 2015. The theme of the conference is "Romanticism and Rights,” inspired by Canadian Museum for Human Rights which recently opened in Winnipeg in September 2014. While the conference theme is "Rights," the topic is broadly construed to include a range of subjects that includes the right to die. The symbolic import of suicide was hotly contested in various texts of the Romantic era. For instance, in the Neoclassical mode and in some radical literature, suicide was lauded as heroic. It was also a popular element in the sometimes vapid, tear-jerking literature of sensibility and tales of celebrity suicides, such as that of the young poet, Chatterton. In Gothic novels, such as Hogg’s Justified Sinner, self-killers represent horror and utter sinfulness, and yet many other writers, following Burton’s influential Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621, attributed suicidality to extreme religious devotion. Most powerfully, though, in the period’s major ideological battles, suicide strongly conveyed revolution, the defiance of tyranny, and a defence of one’s existential and bodily autonomy – all key characteristics of Romanticism as it has traditionally been defined. Nevertheless, by the end of the period, the legal understanding of suicide was linked almost invariably to victimhood, rather than to resistance. Please send 350-word abstracts for 20 minute papers that consider any aspect of suicide in relation to Romanticism, Revolution and Human Rights to Dr Leigh Wetherall Dickson ([log in to unmask]) by Monday 5th January 2015. The website for the conference can be found at http://nassr2015.wordpress.com. ********************************************************* British Association for Romantic Studies http://www.bars.ac.uk<http://www.bars.ac.uk/> To advertise Romantic literature conferences, publications, jobs, or other events that the BARS members would be interested in, please contact Neil Ramsey <[log in to unmask]> Also use this address to register any change in your e-mail address, or to be removed from the list. Messages are held in archives, along with other information about the Mailbase at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/bars.html *********************************************************