Student Blog Archives

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Reading Romanticism Today (A Pedagogical Experiment)

By Talia Vestri

The title of this week’s post echoes the title of my newest course, which I’m currently three weeks into teaching. “Reading Romanticism Today” is one of the English department’s introductory courses advertised as “Freshmen Seminars in Literature.” These classes satisfy our College of Arts and Sciences’ first-year composition requirement.
Having taught several of these intro-level seminars in both the English and Writing Program departments, I’ve designed courses on poetry, fiction, and contemporary media. I typically organize the syllabus around a particular theme, like “the modern American family” or “poetry of the self.” I have not yet focused one on any particular historical period. But since this was likely to be one of the last courses I’ll teach while still a doctoral student, I wanted to develop a syllabus that not only falls within my field of research, but that also pushes beyond a straightforward poetry survey. Continue reading “Reading Romanticism Today (A Pedagogical Experiment)”

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Female Cross-Dressers in 18th-Century and Romantic England

Welcome back, readers! As Managing Editor, I am excited to say that we have an all-star lineup of new bloggers, roundtables, and conferences to share with you this Fall. (For the identities of these mysterious new bloggers, who represent a wide selection of American and Canadian universities, take a look at Our Writers).
In the midst of getting organized for the new semester of NGSC blogging, though, I’m also preparing to give a presentation for my friend Katie Gemmill’s undergraduate seminar at Columbia, which she has brilliantly titled “Miss Behaviour: Transgressive Women in 18th-Century British Fiction.” In response to the assigned primary-source texts on dress, disguise, and gender, I will be providing some historical background for female cross-dressing during this period. Since I think blog readers are just as likely as students to be intrigued by the topic, I’ll introduce to you now some fascinating (and, most importantly, * real *) cases of female cross-dressing and concealed identity — especially in the context of same-sex relationships —  in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Continue reading “Female Cross-Dressers in 18th-Century and Romantic England”

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Guest Post: Disability and Visibility at the Academic Conference

By Caitlin Rose Myers

We would all agree that conferences are an essential part of the job of academic.  However, I’ve recently discovered firsthand that fulfilling this part of our job is extremely difficult for those scholars and graduate students who have disabilities, in ways that are often overlooked – not out of malice, but out of a lack of understanding or foresight.  On a recent trip to two conferences in the span of two weeks, I encountered many of the obstacles I’m referring to while using my wheelchair to try to navigate the conference atmosphere.  I’d like to share these obstacles in the hope of promoting more foresight and more activism for the rights of disabled conference attendees.  Since my disability is largely related to mobility, that is my focus here, although I hope that more conversation can occur about sensitivity and accessibility for all disabled scholars.  As a part of our job, we shouldn’t struggle as much as we do to engage with these events, and I hope to encourage those who notice some of these issues at conferences you attend to speak to organizers about promoting accessibility.
Continue reading “Guest Post: Disability and Visibility at the Academic Conference”

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Ethics & The Archive

This short post was occasioned by a conversation NGSC blog contributor Andrew Welch and I shared on the ethics of archival research while working together over coffee in Chicago this week. Indeed, and because so many of us are engaged not only in grappling with the historical documents that archives provide in support of our research, but also are actively engaged in thinking through the implications of  archival research in terms of travel, the extensive financial resources needed, and the like, I imagined transposing the significant ideas that emerged might be beneficial to readers. Continue reading “Ethics & The Archive”

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Behind the Scenes: Editing "Studies in Romanticism"

By Talia Vestri

Back in June, I posted some rambling reflections about my current position as Editorial Assistant with Studies in Romanticism. Over the summer, I had the pleasure of communicating with SiR’s current Editor, Charles Rzepka, about his own experiences and expectations with publishing the journal. I asked him to provide N-GSC Blog readers with some insights into the journal’s submission process, editorial decisions, and the dreaded reader evaluations. Here, I offer you some highlights from our conversation:
Continue reading “Behind the Scenes: Editing "Studies in Romanticism"”

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Call for Bloggers, 2015-2016

It’s that time of year again — we are looking for new bloggers to write for the NASSR Graduate Student Caucus Blog in 2015-2016!
Bloggers must commit to one post per month throughout the academic year. Posts can range from in-depth scholarly inquiries, to book reviews, interviews with faculty, and reports on conferences, to humorous quips and original creative work, whether artistic or literary: all are welcome.
To apply, please email the Managing Editor, Arden Hegele, with a CV and a short statement of interest, by Monday, September 7th. Applicants will be notified by September 15th.

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Dickens in Eden, 2.0

NASSR-time is upon us, and I am very excited to see many of our Romanticist writers and readers in Winnipeg! Readers can expect an update on the conference — and particularly the sessions for graduate students — next week. But first, I’d like to give my report on The Dickens Universe 2015, which I attended for the first time at UC Santa Cruz at the beginning of this month. This annual week-long event is part academic conference, part professionalism workshop, part Victorian reenactment, and part summer camp: it brings together faculty and graduate students from the US and abroad, but also “Road Scholars” of all ages whose admiration for Boz brings them back each year to discuss a new novel. And, while Dickens isn’t strictly part of the Romanticist repertoire, the conference has much to offer for the aspiring nineteenth-century aficionado/a. Continue reading “Dickens in Eden, 2.0”

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Report from the 12th Biennial IGA Conference: Gothic Migrations

By Caroline Winter

I haven’t been to too many conferences yet, but I imagine that blithe comments about necrophilia and incest are relatively rare, and them being met with easy laughter is rarer still. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that this happened at the conference of the International Gothic Association (IGA), but I didn’t expect the atmosphere to be so lighthearted. That’s not to say that there wasn’t serious scholarship happening; to the contrary, the amount of fascinating research presented on everything from Shakespeare to Supernatural was a little overwhelming.
Continue reading “Report from the 12th Biennial IGA Conference: Gothic Migrations”

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Poem: Outside a chapel

Another older poem (although revised for this blog) – in the Romantic tradition of reflecting on older buildings! The chapel I had in mind is at Trinity College, University of Toronto: http://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/about/chapel/chapel_history.html
Outside a Chapel, the Windows Are Dull
it is the bricks instead, the wall
a jagged ladder –
sandstone scraping itself
up to the prayerful slope
of slate rooftiles that cling
to copper,
broad beam
corroded by contact
with the sky.