News and calls for papers from the Byron Society
CFP: Byronic Modes of Rebellion
The Byron Society is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring a panel at the 2022 BARS/NASSR annual conference on the theme Byronic Modes of Rebellion, and providing bursaries of £250.00 each for three speakers.
Rebellion comes in a myriad of forms, from teenage angst and misanthropic brooding to political, sexual and religious forms of resistance.
From his carefully rumpled ‘poetic’ attire and sexual preferences, to his involvement with revolutionary groups in Italy and Greece, Byron was and remains an inherently rebellious figure.
The same is true of his poetry, with its daring new forms and highly contentious treatment of sexual, political and religious themes. The poetry of the early 1820s was steeped in rebellious impulses, from the provocative representations of Christianity in works such as Cain: A Mystery and subversive political polemics embedded in Sardanapalus and Don Juan VIII-IX, to the depictions of actual revolutions in the historic dramas.
A subversive figure in his own era, in the last fifty years Byron and the Byronic hero have become stock figures of defiance and resistance to established norms, from David Bowie’s persona of ‘screaming Lord Byron’ to the fictional superheroes Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark.
We are inviting proposals for this sponsored panel around the topic of Byronic modes of rebellion. In recognition of the overall focus of the conference, papers focusing on 20th and 21st century elements are preferred.
Topics could include:
Moody and misanthropic Byronic heroes and heroines in the modern day
Political, sexual and religious forms of rebellion in Byron’s poetry
Nationalism, warfare, oppression and independence in Byron’s poetry
Modes of rebellion and revolution embracing Byron’s legacies and receptions, not only in literature but more generally in popular culture, art and music
Rebellion and revolution – Byron and Greece
Deviancy and deviation
Gender fluidity / free love
Film/TV/music Byrons and Byronic figures
Please send submissions to Dr Emily Paterson-Morgan, Director of The Byron Society, by 31st March 2022, contact@thebyronsociety.com.
CFP: Snakes and Eagles in 1822
The Byron Society is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring a panel at The Shelley Conference 2022 (#Shelley200) and providing bursaries of £150.00 each for three speakers.
Charles E. Robinson notably described Shelley and Byron as the ‘snake and eagle wreathed in flight’, lifting and adapting a phrase from Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam. His phrase captures the commonalities and contrasts of these two young poets, both idealistic and embittered by turns, whose close but often fraught friendship developed during a period of astounding personal and poetic productivity.
The friendships, collaborations, and cross-fertilizations which occurred between Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Lord Byron and their peers during this period have proved a source of endless fascination – both in academic scholarship and popular culture.
To celebrate this period and commemorate Shelley’s untimely demise, we are sponsoring a drinks reception at the Shelley Conference 2022 (at Keats House in London) and also inviting proposals for a sponsored panel expanding our understanding of the ways in which Byron and Shelley complemented and undermined each other.
Topics could include:
Shelley and Byron, serious and satirical
Literary and biographical collaborations and contrasts
The poets’ activities in Italy in general and 1822 in particular
Collaborations and challenges
Conscious and unconscious cross-fertilizations between Mary, Percy and Byron
How did Byron contribute to Shelley’s reception and legacy
Views of exile and conceptions of home
Political and moral codes
Sociosexual mores and practicalities of love and duty
Reception and biography, legend and hagiographic myth
Receptions of antiquity
Responses to the Greek Revolution of 1821
Gender fluidity / free love
Byron and Shelley and the Labour ‘movement’ (from Chartists to Foot and Corbyn, perhaps)
Film/TV Byrons and Shelleys
We are particularly interested in submissions from PGR / ECR applicants.
Please send submissions to Dr Emily Paterson-Morgan, Director of The Byron Society, by 31st March 2022, contact@thebyronsociety.com.
Byron Society PhD bursary
The Byron Society invites applications for a PhD bursary of £3,000 every year.
Applications are open to new and existing full-time PhD students enrolled at a UK university and working on a thesis addressing any aspect of the life, work and /or influence of the poet Lord Byron. Applications are also welcomed from those studying multiple poets or authors, including Byron.
Each bursary covers just one year, however multiple applications can be made and postgraduates whose research focuses solely on Byron can receive up to three annual bursaries. (Those who study Byron alongside other poets and authors can only be awarded one bursary).
Applications can be made by students with additional sources of funding, but please list these in your application. The applications should also include a summary of the applicant’s academic record, an outline of his / her proposed research and the names of two referees who may be contacted. Please also state what year of study you are in.
Please download and fill out the Application Form at the bottom of this page, and notify your chosen referee that we will be in touch to request a reference. In addition to the questions below, please state what other funding you have been awarded (if any).
Applications should be sent by email to Dr Emily Paterson-Morgan, Director of the Byron Society, at contact@thebyronsociety.com.
The application process for 2022/2023 is now open, and closes on the 31st of May 2021
However please get in touch if you have any questions.
