Wednesday 11 February 2009

Call for Papers

ERF Study Afternoon:
Thursday, 26th March 2009

In March 2009 the Royal Holloway English Research Forum will be re-launching with a new format. The aim of these sessions is to give postgraduate students at Royal Holloway the opportunity to interact with both their peers and academics in the department. We hope to foster a relaxed atmosphere, in which students can take in papers given by academic members of staff, and deliver and receive feedback on their own research. We would strongly encourage research students to attend this event, as alongside the academic benefits this occasion will provide a good opportunity to socialise with other members of the department.

The first study afternoon of the term will take place on Thursday, 26th March 2009 from 2-4 pm on the Egham campus (room tbc).

Dr Vicky Greenaway will be delivering her paper ‘The Materiality of the Aesthetic in the poetry of D. G. Rossetti and A. C. Swinburne’ which will explore the correlation of Pre-Raphaelite poetic techniques (D. G. Rossetti and A. C. Swinburne) with formal techniques and innovations in contemporary painting.

We are also hoping to recruit papers, approximately twenty minutes in length, from one or two postgraduate students in the department. Topics for the day might include (but are by no means limited to) the relationship between literature and the visual arts in any historical period (including painting, sculpture, fashion, architecture etc.); the relationship between the real and the ideal; the role of the painter-poet; the visual aspects of literary manuscripts. Please note that we would be interested in accepting proposals relating to any nineteenth-century topic in literature and/ or the visual arts.

Proposals (abstracts of approx. 200 words) should be copied to members of the ERF committee (contact details below), and submitted not after Monday, 2nd March.

The ERF will be organising a number of research forums, in different formats, throughout the term. If you have a suggestion for a future study afternoon, or reading group, then please get in touch.

Please also note that the ERF committee is on the look out for new members, and would be particularly interested in having a representative from the incoming class of research students for 2008-09.

We hope to hear from you soon, and see you there!

Best Wishes,

Indera Grewal [i.k.grewal@rhul.ac.uk]
Elizabeth English [e.c.english@rhul.ac.uk]
Carol McGrath [carol_mcgrath@hotmail.com]
Chrissie Lees [c.lees@rhul.ac.uk]