Victorian Studies conference

Victorian Epidemics
Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada
Banff, Alberta April 29-30, 2011

Keynote speaker: Pamela Gilbert, Albert Brick Professor of English, University of Florida Dr. Gilbert has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature, cultural studies and the history of medicine. Her first book, Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women’s Popular Novels, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1997, followed by Mapping the Victorian Social Body (SUNY Press, 2004) and The Citizen’s Body (Ohio State University Press, 2007), and Cholera and Nation (SUNY Press, 2008).

This international conference will bring together specialists in
Victorian art history, history, gender studies, science, and
literature to contemplate the theme of disease in Victorian England
and its colonies. Papers will address medical and social histories of
disease, literary and artistic representations of disease, and disease
as metaphor in Victorian culture.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
-Victorian plagues: cholera, TB, venereal disease, influenza, smallpox
-histories and narratives of disease
-identity and pathology
-disease and the body
-disease as metaphor, languages of disease, contagion, illness
-disease and colonization, disease and globalization
-art as disease, mass culture as disease
-the spread of commercialism
-visual and literary representations of disease and illness
-sewers, filth, miasma
-slums, prostitution
-health and hygiene
-representations of illness
-mental illness
-imperial anxiety and disease

Please submit a 500 word abstract and short (50-75 word bio) by
September 15 to Kristen Guest, Program Chair, kguest@unbc.ca

The conference will take place in Banff, Alberta in the heart of the
Canadian Rockies. The town of Banff is surrounded by the spectacular
scenery of Banff National Park, which offers excellent opportunities
for both hiking and downhill skiing in late April. Banff is
approximately one hour from Calgary and is easily accessible by car or
air (regular and reasonably priced shuttles are available from Calgary
International Airport).

Accommodations and sessions will be held in the Banff Park Lodge.