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CALL FOR PAPERS

The fourteenth annual conference of the British Society for Literature and Science will take place at Royal Holloway, University of London, from Thursday 4 April until Saturday 6 April 2019. Keynote speakers will include Professor Tim Armstrong (Royal Holloway) and Professor Angelique Richardson (Exeter).

The BSLS invites proposals for 20-minute papers, panels of three papers, or special roundtables on any subjects within the field of science (including medicine and technology), and literatures in the broadest sense, including theatre, film, and television. There is no special theme for this conference, but abstracts or panels exploring one of the following topics are especially welcome: (1) how the literatures of Africa, the Americas, Asia, or Australasia address, interact with, or respond to the discourses of science; (2) the digital humanities; (3) the writing, reading, and interpretation of human nature; (4) innovative or progressive models for uniting the sciences and the humanities.

In addition, we are hoping to put together sessions with looser, non-traditional formats, and would welcome proposals from any person or persons interested in making presentations of approximately ten minutes from notes rather than completed papers. The hope is that this format will encourage longer Q&A sessions with more discussion.

Please send an abstract (200 words) and short biographical note (50 words) to the conference organiser, Dr. Mike Wainwright, mike.wainwright@rhul.ac.uk, by no later than 18.00 GMT, Friday 7 December 2018. Include the abstract and biographical note in the body of the email.

All proposers of a paper or panel will receive notification of the results by the end of January 2019.

The conference fee will be waived for two graduate students in exchange for written reports on the conference, to be published in the BSLS Newsletter. If you are interested in being selected for one of these awards, please mention this when sending in your proposal. To qualify you will need to be registered for a postgraduate degree at the time of the conference.

Information concerning onsite accommodation and local hotels will be forthcoming.

Membership: conference delegates will need to register/renew as members of the BSLS (annual membership: £25 waged/ £10 unwaged).

We are delighted to announce that the British Society for Literature and Science and Journal of Literature and Science prize for an essay by an early-career scholar has been won by Lara Choksey for her essay “Peripheral Adaptation: Living with Climate Change in Doris Lessing’s The Making of the Representative for Planet 8”.

We offer our congratulations to Lara for what the judges agreed was a striking and original essay. The essay will be published in the next available issue of JLS, and its author will also receive a prize of £100.

The judging panel wrote: “This year’s prize-winning essay offers a fascinating reading of Lessing’s The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. It convincingly argues that the novel responds to the post-war neoimperial governance of decolonised African nations through its depiction of a genetically engineered labour force of Planet 8ers, in what amounts to a science fictional representation of the imperial invention of race. Choksey skilfully reads the novel through the lens of epigenetic science, bringing that science into conversation with global political debates about race, capitalism, decolonisation and development. Persuasively contending that Lessing explores the potential of biologically different modes of living in an era of ecological crisis and racist exploitation, Choksey’s essay offers an important and timely contribution to the work of undoing the epistemological and psychological effects of imperial rule, and in so doing opens up new vistas for the study of literature and science.

We would like to thank all the BSLS members who submitted essays for this year's prize. As usual, we were delighted by the high standard of the submissions we received and thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them.

Nominations are now being accepted for the BSLS Book Prize 2018. Inaugurated in 2007, the annual British Society for Literature and Science book prize is awarded for the best book in the field of literature and science published that year. Any book is eligible, but can only be considered if it is nominated either by a member of BSLS or by its publisher. Publishers are very welcome to nominate their own books. Members may nominate their own titles. Please note that individual memberships must be current and the publication in question must be dated 2018 to be eligible. Members of the BSLS committee are not eligible for the Prize. A panel of BSLS executive committee members and scholars will read all submissions, with the winner announced at the next annual conference, in Royal Holloway (4-6 April 2019). Please send all nominations to bslsbookprize@gmail.com by 31 December 2018.

Venue:  the Lincoln Drill Hall, Free School Lane, Lincoln. LN2 1EY

Date: 31^st October 2018 (9.30am-4pm)

Keynote speaker: Professor Mark Jancovich (University of East Anglia)

Ticket price: £7.50 (including a light lunch). Available from http://lncn.eu/frank

In celebration of the bi-centenary of the publication of the first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the University of Lincoln is holding a public event, to which all are welcome.

The morning session (10am-1pm) comprises a programme of papers, with questions from the audience.

The afternoon session (2-4pm) comprises a work in progress performance by Chamelon 53, followed by a Round Table discussion (with audience participation) titled ‘Frankenstein’s Relevance to the C21st’, chaired by Professor Lucie Armitt (University of Lincoln).

Programme of Papers:

Prof. Mark Jancovich (University of East Anglia): ‘Frankenstein’s Hideous Progeny: Science Fiction, Horror and Political Discourse.’

Bysshe Inigo Coffey (University of Exeter): ‘A Study, the Senses and the Soul’

Eleanor Bryan (University of Lincoln) ‘Hideous Progenies: Reimagining Frankenstein’s monster’

Lauren Christie (University of Dundee): ‘Monstrous Legacies: Literary Adaptations of Frankenstein for Young Readers’

Dr Kelly Jones (University of Lincoln) ‘Adaptations of monstrous “liveness” in contemporary theatrical representations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’

Enquiries and further information: Lucie Armitt (larmitt@lincoln.ac.uk) or Eleanor Bryan (ebryan@lincoln.ac.uk)

Brighten those dreary nights in November with a visit to Edinburgh and the lively Fates of Frankenstein conference: this is a 2-day conference about Frankenstein’s legacies in popular culture. We are thrilled to be hosting keynote speakers Dr Daniel Cook, University of Dundee, and Professor Catherine Spooner, University of Lancaster.

For the full programme and details of registration, please visit https://blogs.napier.ac.uk/the-age-of-frankenstein/

You can contact the organisers, Emily Alder and Sarah Artt, at frankenstein200@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter, @200frankenstein

This event will be followed by -

Monday 26 November 2018, public event: Staging Frankenstein: Nick Dear in Conversation https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/staging-frankenstein-nick-dear-in-conversation-tickets-47662235028 Hosted by Surgeons’ Hall Museums and sponsored by the British Society for Literature and Science and Edinburgh Napier University.

Call for Papers