The Nineteenth Century Today: Interdisciplinary, International, Intertemporal

INCSA Conference

Durham, UK & Online, 10.-12.07.2024

Deadline:  01.09.2023

This Call for Papers is the first from the International Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, launched to promote interdisciplinary, international, and intertemporal study of this era.

How do we understand the nineteenth century from different disciplinary perspectives? Where in the world do we continue to see its reach? What are its legacies today?

Keynote Speakers

For its inaugural conference, INCSA invites proposals for presentations, papers, panels, and performances that explore the nineteenth century in its past, present, and future manifestations. Topics may include but are not limited to:

  • Systemic risk: pandemics, climate change, biodiversity loss
  • Evidence: material, textual, visual, auditory
  • Collecting knowledge: archives, libraries, museums
  • Displaying knowledge: cartography, fine art, graphic art, architecture
  • Cultural thefts, restitution, reparation, and repatriation
  • Indigenous epistemologies
  • Indigenous rights
  • Colonial and imperial epistemologies
  • Nationalisms and internationalisms
  • Historical facts and fictions
  • Diasporas and migrations
  • Deep time
  • Historical time
  • Literary mediations: historical novels, contemporary epics, poetic (in)justice
  • Cinematic mediations: costume dramas, (post)modern interpretations
  • Technologies of vision and measurement
  • Individual vs collective perspectives
  • Centre and periphery: geographical, intellectual, political
  • Normativity, deviance, transgression

Guidelines for proposals

The conference will be hybrid, with selected components online. When submitting a proposal, please indicate whether you intend to present in person or online. All submissions should have a clear title. All proposals should be submitted via the portal on the INCSA website. Please include contact information (name, email address, and institutional position and affiliation, if any) for all people involved. Send questions to International19thC.StudiesAssoc@gmail.com.

Individual Paper or Poster Proposals should clearly describe the argument and articulate how the research contributes to scholarship. The program will include a designated time for research poster presentations. Maximum length: 300 words. Only one individual proposal may be submitted. Individual papers are 20 minutes.

Panel Proposals, Roundtables, Pedagogy Workshops, and Interdisciplinary Workshops should include a summary of the importance of the panel topic by the panel organiser (maximum length 300 words). The organiser should also include a proposal for each paper prepared by individual panelists following the guidelines for individual proposals, along with each panelist’s contact information. Panel proposals will be considered only as a whole. A panel is three twenty-minute papers or four fifteen-minute papers; a roundtable is five to eight brief explorations, followed by roundtable discussion. Panels and roundtables are 90 minutes, including time for questions. Pedagogy workshops can be either one hour or 90 minutes in length.

Lecture-Recital Proposals should identify the music to be performed, including approximate timing and performing forces, and clearly describe the substance of the lecture component as outlined for individual proposals. Please note clearly at the top that this is a Lecture-Recital proposal. Maximum length: 300 words, plus list of repertoire. Lecture recitals are one hour.

Graduate and Early Career Essay Prizes. INCSA encourages submissions from current graduate students and early career academics. A monetary prize will be awarded for the best paper presented by (a) a graduate student (currently undertaking an MA or PhD) and (b) early career academic (postdoctoral fellow) at the meeting. Application instructions for the prizes will be provided upon acceptance of the paper for the program and will be posted on the conference website. In addition, graduate students whose proposals are accepted are eligible to apply for travel assistance from INCSA.

All conference participants need to be available during the days of the conference for synchronous sessions, whether they are online or in person. Presenters are required to become members of INCSA for the year of the conference. Conference registration is open to all interested persons. For more information about INCSA, see the INCSA website

Further information: