Victorian Travel and Imperial Spaces: A Symposium
University of Kent - 15-16 May 2015
Call for Papers
Victorian British tourists visiting the Pyramids of Giza. Photograph: Chris Hellier/Corbis
Keynote Speaker: Dr Silvia Antosa (Dipartimento di Scienze Umane, Università degli Studi di
Palermo)
Plenary Speaker: Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah (School of English, University of Kent)
Modern, faster forms of transport, new commercial routes changed the ways in which people, goods and ideas travelled, in the late-19th century and
the early-20th century. The impact of global trade and new travel on the imperial project was immense: from the birth of modern tourism to the
emergence of new types of travellers, e.g., to the settler colonies, Victorian travel redefined the relation between space, humans, objects, at home
and abroad.
This symposium at the University of Kent will explore the crucial relationship between travel and imperial spaces in literature, history, the arts and
cultural studies, in the late-Victorian and Edwardian eras.
We therefore welcome abstracts and panel proposals (250 words) for 20-minute papers, from any of these disciplines, to be submitted by the 28th of
February 2015 to B.Franchi@kent.ac.uk or E.Mutlu@kent.ac.uk.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
Submission deadline: 28th February, 2015
 The British Empire in Victorian travel narratives
For any queries, please contact the
 Empire and empires in neo-Victorian and postcolonial literature
organisers: Barbara Franchi
B.Franchi@kent.ac.uk) and Elvan Mutlu
 Crossing border(s), shaping boundaries, identities and empires
(E.Mutlu@kent.ac.uk)
 Women travellers, women writers
 Writing Africa
 Identity in Victorian travel literature
 Victorian popular fiction
We especially welcome proposals from
 Travel at the fin de siècle
postgraduate students and early-career
 European powers and colonial empires
researchers, and we will offer 4 bursaries to
 The Ottoman Empire, the Central European Empires, the Russian Empire
the postgraduate students who will submit the
 Travelling across peripheries and centres: urban and rural spaces in the Victorian era
best abstracts. For further information, please
 Empires and new nations: independence and partition
contact the organisers or visit our website:
 Theorising the colonial and the postcolonial
http://imperialvictoriantravel.wordpress.com/
The event will include a visit to Chatham Dockyard, on Friday the 15th in the afternoon. Ticket included in the conference registration.
Registration: £20
Sponsored by:
The Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies
The Centre for Victorian Literature and Culture