Dear members of BARS,
We’re writing to invite you to visit Melbourne, Australia, to attend the conference we’re organising on ‘Re-reading Romanticism: Imagination, Emotion, Nature, and Things’ (23-25 July 2015). The conference will be preceded by a symposium on ‘Forests’ (22 July) organised by the Centre for the History of Emotions. 

How to register, accommodation details, a list of things to do in Melbourne, etc. can all be found on the RSAA conference home-page— http://conference.rsaa.net.au

Hoping to see you in Australia later this year,
With best wishes,
Peter Otto, Claire Knowles, Deirdre Coleman


RE-READING ROMANTICISM:
IMAGINATION, EMOTION, NATURE, and THINGS
University of Melbourne, 23-25 July 2015

The biennial conference of the Romantic Studies Association of Australia and a supernumerary conference of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS
 
Keynote speakers: Mary Jacobus (Cambridge University), Tilottama Rajan (University of Western Ontario), Peter Otto (University of Melbourne)
 
Re-reading is a key practice for the humanities: it is one of the most important ways in which, on the one hand, the past is made available to the present and, on the other hand, ‘new’ sign systems are forged. More broadly, re-reading (understood as the bivalent process sketched above) is a powerful mode of Romantic creativity and, in this guise, one of the chief ways in which modernity discovers and realizes ‘various possibilities of order on the basis of an increasing freedom and a growing distance vis-à-vis an established reality’ (Luhmann, Art as a Social System). William Blake’s re-reading of Swedenborgian and Moravian discourses, for example, produces a sign-system (a poetic/analytic discourse) that to a surprising degree draws apart from its sources, while remaining independent of conventional semiotic repertoires existing at the time. Although the sources are different, much the same might be said of Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Smith, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Robinson, William Wordsworth, and outside Britain, Olympe de Gouges, Germaine de Staël, Novalis, and many others. Romanticism itself has been the site of numerous re-readings, in which the same bivalent process can be observed; and Romanticism in its various guises continues to be re-read by important strands of contemporary culture. Most prominently, Romantic re-readings of earlier notions of imagination, passion, perception, nature, and things, exert a profound influence on, even as they are being re-read by, contemporary thought. Equally powerful forms of re-reading occur when European Romanticism crosses cultures and is read in China, India, Japan, and so on, and this is evident in the work of Rabindranath Tagore and Kenzaburo Oe, amongst many others. Seen in this light, re-reading converges with contemporary discourses of imagination, innovation, and creativity, whether deployed for politically conservative or progressive ends. Given its importance, it is surprising that so little attention is given to re-reading (as distinct from, say, intertextuality or the study of influence) and that so few accounts of re-reading engage with the bivalent process sketched above. It is our hope that ‘Re-reading Romanticism’ will begin to redress this balance, by providing an opportunity to explore this topic and its significance for the Humanities today. The work of Marilyn Butler will be one of the foci of our discussions. Butler’s strong re-reading of Romanticism has shaped the field we inhabit today, and this conference is intended to honor her memory. 
 
Topics may include:
•        literary and/or cultural theories or histories of re-reading;
•        re-reading in theory;
•        the politics of re-reading;
•        Romanticism, re-reading, and the new;
•        re-reading Romantic texts in China, India, or Japan;
•        non-European readings of Romanticism;
•        re-reading English Romanticism in Europe (and vice versa);
•        Romanticism in Ireland, Scotland, or Wales;
•        re-reading Romanticism in Australia;
•        romantic re-readings of things, animals, or nature;
•        re-reading Romantic bodies, sexualities, or genders;
•        Romantic/gothic re-readings of religion, history, or the passions;
•        re-reading, Romanticism, and the Humanities;
•        contemporary re-readings of Romantic texts;
•        re-reading Romantic canonicity;
•        Marilyn Butler, history, and the study of Romanticism.
 
Deadline for proposals: A 250 word abstract, accompanied by a brief CV, must be submitted before 1 March 2015. 

Conference home-page:  http://conference.rsaa.net.au

The organizers of the RSAA conference are:
Peter Otto (The University of Melbourne) -- [log in to unmask]
Claire Knowles (Latrobe University) -- [log in to unmask]
Deirdre Coleman (The University of Melbourne) -- [log in to unmask]

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Symposium on ‘Forests’: 
Re-reading Romanticism’ will immediately follow a one-day symposium on ‘Forests’, to be organized by Dr. Grace Moore for the Centre for the History of Emotions at Melbourne University. (http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/into-the-woods.aspx). 

Forests, and the stories we tell about them, often belong to our earliest memories, regardless of the amount of time we have ourselves spent in the woods. As Robert Pogue Harrison has suggested, the destruction of the the forest can be considered tantamount to the obliteration of cultural memories. This day-long symposium will consider representations of the forest in music, art, literature and history, from the Medieval period to the present day. Speakers are invited to consider the emotions associated with, and evoked by, the forest while also addressing the role of woodland and the imaginary.
  
Topics may include:
• forest fires
• forest adventures/revelry
• the forest as sanctuary
• animals and forests
• conservation
• forest management
• climate change and the forest
• settlers and forests
• memory and forests
• forests and fear
• enclosure
• deforestation/the endangered forest
• forests and indigenous culture
• ecology
• woodland soundscapes
• fairytales/folklore 

Abstracts of no more than 200 words are required by 28 February 2015. You will be notified by 10 March 2015 if your paper is accepted. Please include a biographical statement of about 100 words with your submission.
 

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