CfP: Victorian Interdisciplinarity International Conference 2018
Durham University
12 May 2018
CFP Deadline: 16 March 2018
Hosts: Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies & Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies
Organising Committee: Rosemary Mitchell, Efram Sera-Shriar (Leeds Trinity University); Bennett Zon (Durham University); Helen Kingstone (University of Glasgow)
Keynote speaker: Gowan Dawson (University of Leicester)
The Victorian Interdisciplinarity project combines
expertise at Durham and Leeds Trinity to build upon a current project
called Victorian Culture and the Origin of Disciplines, led by cultural
historian Bennett Zon (Durham) and historian of science Bernard Lightman
(York University, Canada). Begun at Durham’s Centre for
Nineteenth-Century Studies, that project explores the factors
underpinning the coalescence of modern disciplines, while problematizing
conventional notions of disciplinary crystallization and exposing deep
channels of interdisciplinary interaction. Led by a combination of
scholars at Durham and Leeds Trinity, including cultural historians
Helen Kingstone and Rosemary Mitchell, historian of science Efram
Sera-Shriar and Bennett Zon, Victorian Interdisciplinarity extends this
project by magnifying focus on the dynamics of interdisciplinary
interaction in the formation and promulgation of individual disciplines.
It tests the nature of Victorian Britain’s interdisciplinary project
by probing mutual implications in the genesis of arts and sciences,
including hard and soft sciences, social sciences, humanities and
performative arts. These topics are reflected in a series of three main
events comprising two separate workshops: Victorian Disciplinarity and
the Arts (Saturday 25 November 2017, Durham); Victorian Disciplinarity
and the Sciences (Friday 23 February 2018, Leeds Trinity); and an
international conference (Saturday 12 May 2018, Durham). Related events
are also being planned, including a CNCS workshop and guest lecture led
by Bernard Lightman, and activities at Leeds Trinity.
According to Joe Moran ‘‘interdisciplinarity’
provides a democratic, dynamic and co-operative alternative to the
old-fashioned, inward-looking and cliquish nature of disciplines. And
yet this straightforward interpretation begs a number of questions: how
exactly does interdisciplinary research aspire to be warm, mutually
developing, consultative? Can disciplinary divisions be so easily
broken down or transcended? Is it not inevitable that there should be
some means of ordering and structuring knowledge?’ (Interdisciplinarity, 2011)
This project seeks to probe the ways Victorian
ordered and structured knowledge by viewing their intellectual landscape
as non-disciplinary. Testing modern disciplinary and interdisciplinary
configurations of professional disciplinary coalescence, Victorian
Interdisciplinarity draws upon the methodology underpinning Peter’s
Bowler’s transformative concept of the non-Darwin revolution. While
Bowler argues that Victorian evolutionary ideas failed to produce
crystalized ideological hegemonies, Victorian Interdisciplinarity
proffers a transformative disciplinary landscape in constant flux –
effectively a non-disciplinary revolution.
Within discussions of interdisciplinarity the Arts
and Science have tended to reflect C.P. Snow’s dichotomous concept of
Two Cultures. This project synthesises rather than separates our
methodological insights to produce a holistic and comprehensive
understanding of Victorian interdisciplinarity.
- How was Victorian knowledge organized – is it disciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, or even non-disciplinary?
- Is interdisciplinarity a legitimate concept to apply to Victorian disciplinary interrelationships? What were the politics of disciplinary borders, and how did they facilitate/impede interdisciplinarity?
- What were the processes, practices, mechanisms, discourses, and publication modes of Victorian interdisciplinarity?
- What role did individuals and networks (such as learned societies) play in the coalescence of Victorian interdisciplinarity?
- What were the counter-trends working against disciplinary formations, and what caused them – eg. tensions between elite and popular practitioners and forms, or peripheral/provincial v. central locations; issues of gender, class, and ethnicity/race; religion; rural and urban; colonial, imperial and global/transnational dimensions of knowledge?
- How can studying Victorian interdisciplinary help to inform the theory and practice of interdisciplinarity for us today?
Individual Proposal abstracts for a single
speaker (20 minutes + 10 discussion) should be 350 words and clearly
describe the argument, evidence, and research findings, situate the work
in relation to previous scholarship, and articulate how the research
contributes to research into Victorian interdisciplinary.
Panel Proposal abstracts for 3 speakers (1 ½
hours) or 4 speakers (2 hours) should be 350 words and provide an
outline of the main argument, evidence, and research findings of the
panel, as well as situating the panel’s work in relation to previous
scholarship and articulating how the research contributes to research
into Victorian interdisciplinary. The panel organizer should also
include an individual proposal abstract for each paper following the
guidelines for Individual Proposals, along with each panelist’s contact
information. Panel Proposals will be considered only as a whole, the
session’s coherence being an essential part of the evaluation process.
Submission information
Please send your proposals as Word documents to cncs@durham.ac.uk no later than 1 March 2018. The following format should be used:
- Name, affiliation (if applicable) and contact details (postal address, email and phone)
- Type of presentation (individual or panel)
- Abstract title
- Audio-visual and other requirements (the following are available: Data projector or large plasma screen; Desktop PC; VGA, HDMI and 3.5mm audio inputs; CD player; DVD player; Visualiser; Piano)
- Brief biography (150 words)