Miscellanies

Call for Papers: A Miscellany of Miscellanies: popular poetic collections and the eighteenth century canon

17 September 2013

St Peter's College, Oxford

Poetic miscellanies are vital to understanding the diversity of eighteenth-century literary culture. These popular printed collections of poetry and songs reflect fashions, popular taste and the literary market and were the form in which many ordinary people would have read poetry in the eighteenth century. As one of the most visible points of contact between the shaping of the literary canon and the commercial demands of print culture, they represent a particularly important and popular mediation of poetry in the eighteenth century. Yet they have been largely neglected, because of their bewildering number and variety: there were well over 1200 published between 1700-1780, and the contents of most of these are relatively unknown. This conference will launch the Digital Miscellanies Index (http://digitalmiscellaniesindex.org) a Leverhulme Trust-funded project that will create a freely available online database of the contents of these collections. In displaying this material for the first time, the Index will enable users to map the changing nature of literary taste in the eighteenth century.

We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers on eighteenth-century miscellanies and miscellany culture. Please provide the title and a 250-word abstract of your proposed paper; your name; institutional affiliation where applicable; email address; and a brief (100 words) biography. Send your proposal as an attachment to miscellanies@spc.ox.ac.uk. 

The deadline for receipt of proposals is 28 March 2013.

There will be a conference fee of £20 which will cover lunch, coffee, and tea. The conference and database launch will be followed by ‘The Chearful Companion’, an evening of eighteenth-century music, readings, refreshments and craft. The cost of this event will be an additional £15.

All enquiries should be addressed to the Conference Coordinators, Abigail Williams and Jennifer Batt, at miscellanies@spc.ox.ac.uk.