More than 45 years ago Hans Robert Jauß used his now famous lecture ‘Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory’ to call for a renewal of literary history based on the systematic inclusion of the historical readers. Since then the field has undergone many changes and developments: the cultural turn led to a broader understanding of the notion of writing and reminded scholars of the importance of material objects, the spatial turn invited us to question national frameworks of references and fostered interest in mobility, translations and connectedness, while the vertiginous emergence of the Digital Humanities provided new possibilities of undertaking quantitative research and challenged our very understanding of the process of reading. Nevertheless the literary canon in its different dimensions proved to be remarkably resistant against counter-histories, thus illustrating the difficulties associated with the attempts of constructing an ‘effective history’, in Mario Valdés’s words. Since this situation has a considerable impact on our societies, for instance through the increasing interest in cultural heritage, the question of uses and perceptions of the past is becoming more and more urgent.
The project Travelling Texts, 1790-1914: The Transnational Reception of Women’s Writing at the Fringes of Europe, part of the long-standing research network New approaches to European Women’s Writing (NEWW), inscribes itself in the attempts of transforming the history of literary culture. Using digital tools to explore transnational connections mediated through reading and writing Travelling Texts is clearly rooted in women’s history, with the aim of producing new insights into women’s participation in nineteenth-century literary culture. However, this is only possible by constantly engaging with the theorisation and practice of literary history in general. We therefore invite scholars, professionals and practitioners to join us at the closing conference of the project and explore new approaches to the history of literary culture. Proposals are welcome on any area (i.e., papers are not limited to the countries studied in the project) or period (before 1930) of literary culture but case studies should include elements of methodological or theoretical reflection.

Possible angles on the conference topic include (but are not limited to):

• The canon and its Other(s)
• Connections, spaces and nodes
• Creative uses of the literary past
• Digital Humanities
• Gender and Queer Studies
• History of the emotions
• Material culture and book history
• The new biography
• Readers, reception and circulation
• Women’s history

Invited keynote speakers:

• Andrew Ginger (Chair in Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol, co-founder of the Nineteenth-Century Hispanism Network)
• Margaret McFadden (Prof emerita in Women’s Studies at the Appalachian State University)
• Amelia Sanz (Professor in French Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, coordinator of the Digital Humanities research group Literaturas españolas y europeas del texto al hypermedia, member of the NEWW network)

We invite proposals for individual papers, panels (3-4 papers) or interactive sessions. Abstracts should have a maximum length of 400 words and should also contain first and last name of presenter, title of proposed presentation, institutional affiliation (if applicable), mailing address and email address. For a panel proposal please include a summary of the session in addition to the individual abstracts, with a maximum length of 400 words. The conference language will be English.

Proposals must be received no later than 18 September 2015 and should be posted to Henriette.Partzsch@glasgow.ac.uk. They will be reviewed by members of the programme committee.

Programme committee:

• Gillian Dow (Chawton House Library/ University of Southampton)
• Anouk Lang (University of Edinburgh)
• Robin MacKenzie (University of St Andrews)
• Penelope Morris (University of Glasgow)
• Henriette Partzsch (Project leader of TTT, University of Glasgow) and Marie Nedregotten Sørbø (Principal Investigator, Volda University College), together with other members of the project team

Beitrag von: Henriette Partzsch

Redaktion: Reto Zöllner