Call for Participants- Table Talks 1: New Approaches to Romanticism and the Natural World, Wednesday 16th December 2020
Table Talks 1: New Approaches to Romanticism and the Natural World
Wednesday 16th December 2020
Edmund J. Sullivan, “On the proposal for a cast-metal king”. Sartor Resartus, p. 41, 1898Scanned image and text by George P. Landow http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/sullivan/17.html
Call for Participants
‘Table Talks’ were a famous genre of literature in the early nineteenth century, recording the conversation of well-known writers, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and Charles Lamb.
As part of ‘The Romantic Ridiculous’ project, EHU Nineteen will host a series of ‘Table Talks’, which will take the form of interactive online workshops led by relevant scholars in the field of Romantic Studies, with an aim to explore new perspectives on Romantic aesthetics, Romantic engagement with nature, society, and childhood, as well as later representations of Romantics and Romanticism.
These ‘Table Talks’ will be structured as informal workshops bringing together established academics with postgraduate students and early career scholars to discuss new methodologies in Romantic Studies. They will be recorded and disseminated as podcasts, available on the project website and advertised through social media. We also intend to produce a printed booklet drawing on the discussions at these 'Table Talks', which will present new approaches to Romanticism in critical and creative formats.
‘Table Talks’ will draw on Wayne Booth’s idea of ‘co-duction’, discussed in Maureen McLane’s 2007 essay ‘Romanticism; Or, Now’. Co-duction means leading through conversation with peers, fitting the collective and collaborative spirit of ‘The Romantic Ridiculous’.
The first ‘Table Talk’ will focus on new approaches to Romanticism and the natural world. As AHRC leadership fellow, Andrew McInnes (Edge Hill University) will focus on how Romantic writers represented the natural world as ridiculous and include readings from Coleridge’s notebooks, letters, and poetry in conversation with selections from Dr Elizabeth Edwards (CAWCS/Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies) on Coleridge in Wales and the French invasion of Fishguard.
We invite postgraduate and early career researchers to pitch a literary text to close read alongside our selections. This close reading does not have to be linked to ‘The Romantic Ridiculous’ project but should lead to a discussion of a new perspective on Romantic Studies and the natural world. We have 4 x £100 bursaries for successful pitches. A virtual reading pack will be sent out before the event and successful applicants will be expected to lead an informal discussion of their chosen text.
Please send a pitch including a literary text of ca. 1000 words with a 250 word rationale for its inclusion to Andrew.McInnes@edgehill.ac.uk by Wednesday 14th October 2020.
The ‘Table Talk’ will be open to all and we invite you to attend an exciting online discussion of new approaches to Romanticism and the natural world!