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Call for Papers, Annual Meeting, Online, 22-23 October 2021.

The Northeast Conference on British Studies (NECBS) will hold its 2021 annual meeting on Friday and Saturday, October 22 and 23. The meeting will take place virtually, using Zoom as the online platform.

This year's conference will feature plenary lectures from Margaret Hunt (Uppsala University, Sweden) and James Vernon (University of California, Berkeley). The conference will also hold a roundtable with publishers, focusing on moving from dissertation to first book. 

We solicit the participation of scholars in all areas of British Studies, broadly defined. In particular, we welcome proposals for interdisciplinary panels that draw on the work of historians, literary critics, and scholars in other disciplines, whose focus is on Britain and its empire, from the Middle Ages to the present. Proposals for entire panels on a common theme will be given priority, although individual paper proposals will also be considered if several of them can be assembled to create a viable panel. Proposals for roundtable discussions of a topical work, on current issues in the field, or pedagogical practices with respect to the teaching of particular aspects of British Studies are also encouraged. The typical ninety-minute panel will include three papers (each lasting for roughly twenty minutes) and a chair. (In the interest of allowing greater audience participation in Q&A, the position of “moderator/comment” is optional.) Roundtables may have a looser format.

Proposals should include a general description of the panel or roundtable (including an overall title), a 200-300 word abstract for each paper to be read, and a one-page curriculum vitae for each participant. Please include the address, phone number, and e-mail address of all participants (including the chair and, if applicable, moderator) in the proposal. For panel or roundtable proposals, please note the name of the main contact person. Electronic submissions (as e-mail attachments in Word) are preferred, with all the various materials presented in a single document.

Graduate students, please note: Each year the NECBS Executive Committee awards the David Underdown Memorial Prize to the best graduate student paper presented at the conference. (See details here.)

All submissions must be received by June 1, 2021 (final decisions will be announced in early July 2021).

Please send your proposals to:

Brian Lewis, NECBS Vice President and Program Chair

[email protected]  

The NACBS Rights Task Force was created in August 2016 to address LGBT, voting rights, and race and religious freedom issues as they pertain (and if they pertain) to NACBS, and to consider the increasing issues surrounding visas and freedom of movement that confront researchers working internationally. In addition, the Rights Task Force is concerned with the ways that the NACBS can be more inclusive and accessible for graduate students, adjuncts, and people without traditional academic jobs.