This term the Science and Literature Reading Group joins forces with the AI Narratives research programme from the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.
All are welcome to join in our wide-ranging and friendly discussions: full details of meeting times and location will be available soon. The group is organised by Kanta Dihal and Melanie Keene.
For recaps, further readings, news, and other updates, please follow us on Twitter @scilitreadgrp or visit our blog.
Readings will include:
Tuesday, October 09, 2018
CFP: The British Society for Literature and Science Fourteenth Annual Conference, Royal Holloway University of London, 4-6 April 2019
CALL FOR PAPERS
The fourteenth annual conference of the British Society for Literature and Science will take place at Royal Holloway, University of London, from Thursday 4 April until Saturday 6 April 2019. Keynote speakers will include Professor Tim Armstrong (Royal Holloway) and Professor Angelique Richardson (Exeter).
The BSLS invites proposals for 20-minute papers, panels of three papers, or special roundtables on any subjects within the field of science, and literatures in the broadest sense, including theatre, film, and television. There is no special theme for this conference, but abstracts or panels exploring one of the following topics are especially welcome:
(1) how the literatures of Africa, the Americas, Asia, or Australasia address, interact with, or respond to the discourses of science;
(2) the digital humanities;
(3) the writing, reading, and interpretation of human nature;
(4) innovative or progressive models for uniting the sciences and the humanities.
In addition, we are hoping to put together sessions with looser, non-traditional formats, and would welcome proposals from any person or persons interested in making presentations of approximately ten minutes from notes rather than completed papers. The hope is that this format will encourage longer Q&A sessions with more discussion.
Please send an abstract (200 words) and short biographical note (50 words) to the conference organiser, Dr. Mike Wainwright, mike.wainwright@rhul.ac.uk, by no later than 18.00 GMT, Friday 7 December 2018. Include the abstract and biographical note in the body of the email. All proposers of a paper or panel will receive notification of the results by the end of January 2019.
The conference fee will be waived for two graduate students in exchange for written reports on the conference, to be published in the BSLS Newsletter. If you are interested in being selected for one of these awards, please mention this when sending in your proposal. To qualify you will need to be registered for a postgraduate degree at the time of the conference.
Information concerning onsite accommodation and local hotels will be forthcoming.
Membership: conference delegates will need to register/renew as members of the BSLS (annual membership: £25 waged/ £10 unwaged).
The fourteenth annual conference of the British Society for Literature and Science will take place at Royal Holloway, University of London, from Thursday 4 April until Saturday 6 April 2019. Keynote speakers will include Professor Tim Armstrong (Royal Holloway) and Professor Angelique Richardson (Exeter).
The BSLS invites proposals for 20-minute papers, panels of three papers, or special roundtables on any subjects within the field of science, and literatures in the broadest sense, including theatre, film, and television. There is no special theme for this conference, but abstracts or panels exploring one of the following topics are especially welcome:
(1) how the literatures of Africa, the Americas, Asia, or Australasia address, interact with, or respond to the discourses of science;
(2) the digital humanities;
(3) the writing, reading, and interpretation of human nature;
(4) innovative or progressive models for uniting the sciences and the humanities.
In addition, we are hoping to put together sessions with looser, non-traditional formats, and would welcome proposals from any person or persons interested in making presentations of approximately ten minutes from notes rather than completed papers. The hope is that this format will encourage longer Q&A sessions with more discussion.
Please send an abstract (200 words) and short biographical note (50 words) to the conference organiser, Dr. Mike Wainwright, mike.wainwright@rhul.ac.uk, by no later than 18.00 GMT, Friday 7 December 2018. Include the abstract and biographical note in the body of the email. All proposers of a paper or panel will receive notification of the results by the end of January 2019.
The conference fee will be waived for two graduate students in exchange for written reports on the conference, to be published in the BSLS Newsletter. If you are interested in being selected for one of these awards, please mention this when sending in your proposal. To qualify you will need to be registered for a postgraduate degree at the time of the conference.
Information concerning onsite accommodation and local hotels will be forthcoming.
Membership: conference delegates will need to register/renew as members of the BSLS (annual membership: £25 waged/ £10 unwaged).
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Narrative Science - website and seminar series
The Narrative Science project is very pleased to announce the launch of its website, and the start of a seminar series that will run in London throughout the rest of 2018 and to the end of summer in 2019.
The website, which contains further information about the project and an introduction to its central ideas, can be found here.
Seminar series- Term 1
Each seminar will include two speakers. They will take place between 17:00 and 19:00 on the LSE campus in London, building KSW and room G.01. The KSW building can be found on this map, just on Kingsway road.
9/10/2018
6/11/2018
20/11/2018
4/12/2018
Seminar series- Term 1
Each seminar will include two speakers. They will take place between 17:00 and 19:00 on the LSE campus in London, building KSW and room G.01. The KSW building can be found on this map, just on Kingsway road.
9/10/2018
- Sally Atkinson (University of Exeter) Fragile cultures and unruly matters: narrating microbial lives in synthetic biology knowledge practices
- Elisa Vecchione (Group of Pragmatic and Reflexive Sociology, EHESS, Paris) The political necessity of a more poetic science: the case of climate-economic narratives
6/11/2018
- Julia Sánchez-Dorado (UCL) and Claudia Cristalli (UCL) Colligation in model analysis: from Whewell’s tides to the San Francisco Bay Model
- Veronika Lipphardt (University College Freiburg) TBA
20/11/2018
- Caitlin Donahue Wylie (University of Virginia) Narrating Disaster: A Method of Socialization in Engineering Laboratories
- Sigrid Leyssen (University of Bucharest) TBA
4/12/2018
- Lukas Engelman (University of Edinburgh) Epidemiology as Narrative Science: Outbreak reports of the third plague pandemic from 1894 to 1952
- Sabine Baier (LSE and ETH Zürich) TBA
Friday, September 07, 2018
CFP: BSLS Winter Symposium 2018: Environments of Literature and Science
Date: Saturday 24th November 2018 (10:00 – 18:00)
Location: Cardiff University
Organisers: Joan Passey (Exeter, jp374@exeter.ac.uk), Louise Benson-James (Bristol, louise.bensonjames@bristol.ac.uk), Jim Scown (Cardiff, scownj@cardiff.ac.uk)
Keynote: ‘Biggish Data: Friedrich Engels, Material Ecology, and Victorian Data’ by John Parham, University of Worcester
The Environmental Humanities have gained momentum relatively recently, contributing to developing theories of the Anthropocene, responding to rapid changes in climate, and addressing our changing relationship with the world around us. They have also raised questions of how we define, shape, protect, and imagine our environments. This symposium provides a space to consider such questions, while also encompassing a wider sense of environment. How do we discuss the environments of literature – its production, dissemination, and reception? How do we understand the environments of science – its construction, its laboratories, its spaces of discourse? In what environments do we engage with Literature and Science as an interdisciplinary field, and in what environments do we teach, research, and encounter interactions between literature and science? These questions are bound up with, and have the potential to greatly impact, the environmental turn in humanities scholarship.
The research environment is under increasing scrutiny with discussions surrounding funding, the future of research, interdisciplinarity and collaboration, the mental health and wellbeing of researchers, and how the infrastructure and shape of research environments will look in the future. Doctoral and research awards focus on interdisciplinarity and collaboration, and the AHRC's four research themes (Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past, Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities, Science in Culture, and Translating Cultures) all provide scope to consider the history of environments, environments of research, and how we interpret our environments. This symposium provides an opportunity for researchers to reflect on the significance of environments to their research at all stages of their careers, with the aim of providing a supportive collaborative environment in and of itself, while simultaneously offering a forum for considering how literature and science scholarship might address the environmental challenges of the present and future.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers. Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to bslsenvironments@gmail.com by Monday 15th October 2018, accompanied by a short biography (60 – 100 words). We welcome proposals for panel presentations, as well as for poster presentations to be held during the lunch break.
Keynote: ‘Biggish Data: Friedrich Engels, Material Ecology, and Victorian Data’ by John Parham, University of Worcester
The Environmental Humanities have gained momentum relatively recently, contributing to developing theories of the Anthropocene, responding to rapid changes in climate, and addressing our changing relationship with the world around us. They have also raised questions of how we define, shape, protect, and imagine our environments. This symposium provides a space to consider such questions, while also encompassing a wider sense of environment. How do we discuss the environments of literature – its production, dissemination, and reception? How do we understand the environments of science – its construction, its laboratories, its spaces of discourse? In what environments do we engage with Literature and Science as an interdisciplinary field, and in what environments do we teach, research, and encounter interactions between literature and science? These questions are bound up with, and have the potential to greatly impact, the environmental turn in humanities scholarship.
The research environment is under increasing scrutiny with discussions surrounding funding, the future of research, interdisciplinarity and collaboration, the mental health and wellbeing of researchers, and how the infrastructure and shape of research environments will look in the future. Doctoral and research awards focus on interdisciplinarity and collaboration, and the AHRC's four research themes (Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past, Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities, Science in Culture, and Translating Cultures) all provide scope to consider the history of environments, environments of research, and how we interpret our environments. This symposium provides an opportunity for researchers to reflect on the significance of environments to their research at all stages of their careers, with the aim of providing a supportive collaborative environment in and of itself, while simultaneously offering a forum for considering how literature and science scholarship might address the environmental challenges of the present and future.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Environments of science, including laboratories, field work, universities, hospitals, theatres
- Science and literatures of the environment and environmental sciences
- Global environments; cultural environments; globalisation, national identities, international identities, regionality; postcolonial environmentalism and postcolonial literature and science
- The natural world; animals in the environment; habitats, habitation and cohabitation; agriculture, food and the environment;
- The urban world; the built environment; the subterranean
- Toxic environments; pollution, contagion, poison, criminality, danger, rebellion, resistance; antagonistic environments; monstrous, sublime, and frightening environments; the ecogothic
- What environments best enable the staging, performance, adaptation, re-imagining, or re-working of literature and science?
We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers. Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to bslsenvironments@gmail.com by Monday 15th October 2018, accompanied by a short biography (60 – 100 words). We welcome proposals for panel presentations, as well as for poster presentations to be held during the lunch break.
UL exhibition - An age of Discoveries: 250 Years since the Endeavour Voyage to the Pacific
A display of key manuscripts and books relating
to the voyage of James Cook, Joseph Banks, Sydney Parkinson and others
to the Pacific in 1768 is now on show in the main entrance hall of the
University Library. Curated by Edwin Rose, a Ph.D. student in
HPS. More information can be found here.
Wednesday, September 05, 2018
CFP – Verbal and Visual Strategies in Nonfiction Picturebooks
Verbal and Visual Strategies in Nonfiction Picturebooks
7th International conference European Network of Picturebook Research
PhD workshop September 25, 2019
International conference September 26 – 28, 2019
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences / Høgskulen på Vestlandet – Campus Bergen – Kronstad
Call for Papers
Nonfiction picturebooks have been published concurrently with fictional picturebooks for decades, if not centuries. Clearly recognized as an art form on a par with fiction picturebooks, nonfiction picturebooks have been honoured with their own category for awards at the prestigious Bologna Children’s Book Fair since 1995. In spite of this, the scholarly field of picturebooks and picturebook theory have paid comparatively little attention to nonfiction picturebooks.Rather than dwelling on the reasons behind this lacuna within picturebook research, there is a need to bring together studies that attempt to remedy this deficiency, and to establish a theoretical framework or starting point for systematic and inventive approaches to various kinds of nonfiction picturebooks, both printed and digital. From pop-up books on urban development and big vehicles, to biographies about artists, adventurers, scientists, kings and queens, to graphic nonfiction on terrorism, the World Wars, and stem cells, to reference works such as atlases, encyclopaedias, ABC-books, and picture dictionaries, nonfiction picturebooks span a dizzying range of different themes, formats, and intended addressees. Central to the investigation of nonfiction picturebooks is the construction and validation of knowledge and the acknowledgement that the dissemination of knowledge in nonfiction picturebooks varies according to the context (time, place, function) in which the text was created. Questions for inquiry include the kind of knowledge that is examined and why, and the ways in which knowledge is presented and organized in the book.
The 7th International conference of the European Network of Picturebook Research aims at being a conference, where analytical perspectives, methods, and frameworks are examined, tested and developed.
We invite papers related to the overall theme of the conference. Possible areas for investigation include, but are not restricted to:
- The utilization of verbal, visual, audial, tactile and other multimodal strategies in nonfiction picturebooks
- The presentation of knowledge in nonfiction picturebooks
- The implied reader in nonfiction picturebooks
- Nonfiction picturebooks across time, cultures, and languages
- Picture dictionaries, concept books, and alphabet books
- Digital nonfiction picturebooks
- The paratexts of nonfiction picturebooks
- Nonfiction picturebook artists and artistic strategies
Submission
Please send an abstract of 300 words maximum and a short biography of 100 words as two attached Word documents to Nina Goga, ngo@hvl.no. E-mails should have the subject line: Conference nonfiction picturebooks.Abstracts should include the following information:
- Author(s)
- Affiliation as you would like to appear in the programme
- E-mail address
- Title of proposal
- Text of proposal
- Selected bibliography with academic sources (3-5 references)
- Areas of interest
- Five keywords
Deadline for abstract submission: December 15, 2018
Notification of acceptance: March 15, 2019
Conference fee
Early registration fee (before May 15, 2019): € 60,00Fee after May 15 (till July 31), 2019: € 95,00
Conference dinner: € 35,00 (drinks not included)
The European Network of Picturebook Research was established during the first picturebook conference in Barcelona in September 2007. The network was proposed by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (University of Tübingen, Germany) who was a member of both the reading committee and co-organizer of the Barcelona-conference, and of the core group of picturebook researchers, which includes/d Evelyn Arizpe, Nina Christensen, Teresa Colomer, Elina Druker, Maria Nikolajeva, and Cecilia Silva-Díaz.
The aims of these conferences are:
a. to foster international picturebook research
b. to promote young researchers who are focusing on the investigation of picturebooks
c. to publish selected papers presented at the conferences through international publishers or in peer-reviewed journals.
Monday, August 27, 2018
Theatre at the ADC and Playroom
Lots of upcoming productions at the ADC and Corpus Playroom which will be of interest to members of the Reading Group:
- 'At Home at the Zoo', Corpus Playroom, 18-22 September
- 'The Physicists', Corpus Playroom, 9-13 October
- 'RIBS', ADC, 24-27 October
- 'Mosquitoes', ADC, 13-17 November
- 'Photograph 51', ADC, 9-13 April
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Vacancy: Graduate Research Assistant, University of Oxford
Applications are invited for a full time Graduate Research Assistant
to join the team working on the AHRC funded project ‘Constructing
Scientific Communities’ and the ERC funded project, ‘Diseases of Modern
Life: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives’, under the direction of Professor
Sally Shuttleworth.
The projects are interdisciplinary, bringing together scholars from the fields of literature and science, and the history of medicine, science and technology. The post holder will provide research support for the projects in a range of areas, including preparation of materials for publication and database entry, and public engagement activities. There is also the possibility of pursuing individual research in the area.
The AHRC funded project ‘Constructing Scientific Communities’ will run to 30 November 2018, and this will be the primary focus of work when the post holder takes up the role. The ERC funded project, ‘Diseases of Modern Life: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives’ will run until 31 July 2019 and therefore the final part of the time in the role will be focused on this project.
Further particulars (which all applicants must consult) are available here.
Applications (which should include a CV and a supporting statement explaining your suitability for the post) must be made online via the link above by 12 noon on 13 September 2018. You will be asked to upload a CV, and supporting statement. Please ensure all documents are uploaded as PDF files.
Interviews will be held in the last week of September or first week in October 2018.
The projects are interdisciplinary, bringing together scholars from the fields of literature and science, and the history of medicine, science and technology. The post holder will provide research support for the projects in a range of areas, including preparation of materials for publication and database entry, and public engagement activities. There is also the possibility of pursuing individual research in the area.
The AHRC funded project ‘Constructing Scientific Communities’ will run to 30 November 2018, and this will be the primary focus of work when the post holder takes up the role. The ERC funded project, ‘Diseases of Modern Life: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives’ will run until 31 July 2019 and therefore the final part of the time in the role will be focused on this project.
Further particulars (which all applicants must consult) are available here.
Applications (which should include a CV and a supporting statement explaining your suitability for the post) must be made online via the link above by 12 noon on 13 September 2018. You will be asked to upload a CV, and supporting statement. Please ensure all documents are uploaded as PDF files.
Interviews will be held in the last week of September or first week in October 2018.
Dickens Day 2018: 'Dickens, Families and Communities'
Programme
9 – 10:00 am Registration, coffee and opening remarks10 – 11:15 am Plenary panel
Lillian Nayder (Bates College), 'Better to be Cain than Abel'
Mary Shannon (University of Roehampton), 'Space, Place, and Dickens's Networks'
Cathy Waters (University of Kent), 'Celebrating the brotherhood of the pen: George Augustus Sala on "Dickens and Thackeray"'
11:15 – 11:30 am Readings organised by Tony Williams of the Dickens Fellowship
11:30 – 12 pm Coffee
12 – 1:15 pm Parallel panels
Care: Physical and Philanthropic
Heather Tilley (Birkbeck, University of London), 'Engendering care or cruelty? The paralysed body in Dickens's Fiction'
Adelene Buckland (King's College London), 'Dickens and the Artificial Mother'
Joanna Hofer-Robinson (University College Cork), 'Putting Dickens to Work: "at least, that is her plan of Gampaign"'
Dickens and Mutual Friends
Katie Jackson (Royal Holloway, University of London), 'Controlling Cutlery: Objects of Anxiety, Humiliation and Identity'
Logan Browning (Rice University), 'The Bad Host in Dickens'
David Namie (University of California, Santa Cruz), '"Only to see that there's no look-out when he's up there": Authorizing Normativity and its Alternatives in Our Mutual Friend'
1:15 – 2:30 Lunch (own arrangements)
2:30 – 2.45 pm Readings organised by Tony Williams of the Dickens Fellowship
2:45 – 4 pm Parallel panels
Nation and Community
Lucy Whitehead (Cardiff University), '''Dickens ... hoisted the French colours: National Community in Dickens Biography'
Jungmin Yoo (Sogang University, South Korea), '"Yes, my poor sister; to the last": Sacrificing for Fraternity in A Tale of Two Cities'
Jacqueline Stamp (Canterbury Christ Church University), 'Dickens's Arctic Communities'
Gender and Familial (Dis)Regulation
Jennifer Miller (University of Leicester), 'Domesticity and the Fallen Woman Plot in Victorian theatrical adaptations of David Copperfield'
Justin Jones (University of North Texas), 'Brave Fools: The Community of Masculine Heroes in Dickens's Dombey and Son'
Cory Sampson (University of Ottawa), 'Nobody's Family: (Pseudo) Familial Relationships and Emotional Labour in Little Dorrit'
4 – 4:30 pm Coffee
4:30 – 5:15 pm Plenary
Holly Furneaux (Cardiff University) 'Lighthouse Keeping'
We look forward to seeing you! Register here
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
CFP - Health Care in Children's Literature
Edited Collection Call for Papers
Health Care in Children's Literature
Edited by Naomi Lesley, Sarah Hardstaff, and Abbye E. Meyer
Recently, issues of health insurance access and cost have been a dominant political
issue in the United States. However, questions about health care (beyond insurance) have
surfaced in children’s literature from many nations, for many decades. This edited collection will
consider how children’s literature and media can enrich our understanding about health care
from many perspectives, through consideration of international comparisons; historical change;
disparities based on gender, race, disability, class, and age; and attention to informal as well as
formal systems of care.
Essays for this volume might address a variety of topics. The following is a partial list of
pertinent topics, but proposals are welcomed on other issues of health care not mentioned
below:
Scholars interested in contributing to this volume should submit a 300-500 word proposal
by January 30, 2019. Please email proposals, and any questions, to Naomi Lesley
( naomi.lesley@hcc.edu ), Sarah Hardstaff ( sflh2@cam.ac.uk ) , or Abbye Meyer
( abbyemeyer@gmail.com ).
Health Care in Children's Literature
Edited by Naomi Lesley, Sarah Hardstaff, and Abbye E. Meyer
Recently, issues of health insurance access and cost have been a dominant political
issue in the United States. However, questions about health care (beyond insurance) have
surfaced in children’s literature from many nations, for many decades. This edited collection will
consider how children’s literature and media can enrich our understanding about health care
from many perspectives, through consideration of international comparisons; historical change;
disparities based on gender, race, disability, class, and age; and attention to informal as well as
formal systems of care.
Essays for this volume might address a variety of topics. The following is a partial list of
pertinent topics, but proposals are welcomed on other issues of health care not mentioned
below:
- How children’s literature addresses (or does not address) the cost of care
- Barriers to health care in children’s books, including barriers based on race, sexuality, class, gender, or disability
- Differences in care based on visible vs. invisible disabilities
- Questions of who gets sick and who stays healthy in literature
- Health care broadly defined as access to food, shelter, and security, as well as care for acute sickness, chronic illness, mental health, and disability
- How issues of health access are addressed in books pre-WWII (before health insurance in many nations), as well as in historical fiction written since
- How children’s literature portrays children growing into caring professions (aspiring to be nurses, doctors, etc)
- Child characters as caretakers and healers for family and community members
Scholars interested in contributing to this volume should submit a 300-500 word proposal
by January 30, 2019. Please email proposals, and any questions, to Naomi Lesley
( naomi.lesley@hcc.edu ), Sarah Hardstaff ( sflh2@cam.ac.uk ) , or Abbye Meyer
( abbyemeyer@gmail.com ).
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