This cross-cultural half-day workshop sets out to discuss different ways of approaching the history of women’s writing during the long 19th century and to explore how these roots can shape and inform contemporary praxis. Our aim is to establish a productive dialogue between the past and the present of women’s participation in literary culture, bringing together the remits of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing and the historical focus of the HERA-funded collaborative research project Travelling Texts, 1790-1914 (http://travellingtexts.huygens.knaw.nl/). Special attention will be paid to the important role of libraries as institutions that conserve, shape and present our literary heritage for contemporary users, with contributions from Dr Gillian Dow, Chawton House Library (http://www.chawtonhouse.org/), and Donna Moore, Glasgow Women’s Library (http://womenslibrary.org.uk/).

Friday, 26 June, 2‐6pm
Venue: Room 243, Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Programme

14:00‐14:05 Welcome (Gill Rye, CCWW)

14:05‐ 15:25 Session 1: Historical Perspectives

Gillian Dow (Chawton House Library): The Biographical Impulse, Writing Women’s Literary History and Chawton House Library

Henriette Partzsch (Hispanic Studies, Glasgow): Mapping the Transnational Reception of 19th‐Century Women´s Writing

15:25‐15.55 Tea Break

15:55‐17:15 Session 2: Living Archives [Chair: Gillian Dow]

Marina Cano López (English, St Andrews): Recycling the Archive: Jane Austen in the 21st Century

Donna Moore (Glasgow Women’s Library): The March of Women: Glasgow Women’s Library’s Living and Breathing Archive out on the Streets

17:15 Wine Reception