Romantic Realignments is one of the longest-running research seminars in Oxford.

Past speakers have included Marilyn Butler, Gerard Carruthers, David Chandler, Heather Glen, Paul Muldoon, Philip Shaw, Fiona Stafford and Peter Swaab, to name but a few.

All are very welcome to submit an abstract — we aim to provide a friendly 'workshop' setting in which speakers can try out new papers as well as more finished pieces, and in which lively discussion can flourish.

Held on Thursdays at 5.15pm, Seminar Room A, St Cross (English Faculty) Building.

If you would like to send us an abstract or suggest a speaker, please contact the current convenors Katherine Fender, Sarah Goode and Honor Rieley at: romantic.realignments@gmail.com

26/10/2013

Week 3 - " 'Behindhand With Their Countrymen': The Literary Culture of Eighteenth-Century Exeter"


Dr Joseph Crawford (University of Exeter)

Exeter - as described by Daniel Defoe in the early eighteenth-century: "large, rich, beautiful, populous and...once very strong".


Joseph Coles, "A true plan of the city of Excester Anno Domini MDCCIX" (1709)



This week, we'd like to welcome Dr Joseph Crawford from the University of Exeter, here to speak to us about his current research on the city's eighteenth-century literary culture:


Abstract

In the early eighteenth century, the south-west of England was still a remote and little-visited area. Exeter, which in 1700 was still one of the largest and richest cities in England, served as the regional capital, separated from London by a hundred and fifty miles of famously terrible West Country roads which took four days to traverse by coach. Throughout the century, the most gifted writers born in the region - John Gay, Hannah Cowley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge - headed to London to seek their fortunes; but the printing and book-selling trades flourished in Exeter, and by the 1780s the city could boast a well-established local literary culture, with Devonshire doctors, clergymen, officers, Dissenters, and in one case even an Exmoor wool-comber coming to Exeter to have their writings printed and sold. In this seminar, I shall map out the development of this local literary culture, and discuss some of the ways in which it both conformed with and deviated from the more familiar national narratives regarding the development of English literature during the eighteenth century.

As ever, all are welcome to attend both the seminar and the wine reception afterwards; we hope to see many of you on Thursday!

18/10/2013

*Week 2 - Additional Romantic Realignments Seminar*


Professor David Bromwich (Yale University) - 'Romanticism, Justice, and the Idea of the Nation'



Wednesday 23 October, 5:15pm, Seminar Room A, St Cross Building

We're delighted to welcome Professor David Bromwich from Yale University this week, who has very kindly agreed to speak at Romantic Realignments while he is here in Oxford giving the Clarendon Lectures.

Ahead of Wednesday's seminar, David has provided a short list of readings for those who would like to consider some - or all - of the main texts we'll be focusing on during the session:

- Richard Price, Discourse on the Love of our Country
- William Hazlitt, On Patriotism
- William Wordsworth, 'I grieved for Buonaparte'; 'To Toussaint L'Ouverture'; 'When I have borne in memory'; 'To Thomas Clarkson'
- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address

This promises to be a great opportunity for informal discussion, questions and thoughts to thrive; all are warmly encouraged to attend.  Hope to see lots of you then! 

14/10/2013

Michaelmas 2013 Termcard


Romantic Realignments


Every Thursday at 5.15, English Faculty Building, 
Seminar Room A.
*Extra seminar on Wednesday of Week 2.*

Week 1, 17 October: 
Daniel Cook, University of Dundee. 
Wordsworth's Chatterton.

*Week 2, 23 October:
David Bromwich, Yale University. 
Romanticism, Justice, and the Idea of the Nation.
                                    
Week 2, 24 October:
Octavia Cox, University of Oxford.
Pope, Cowper, and the Epic.

Week 3, 31 October:
Joseph Crawford, University of Exeter.
'Behindhand With Their Countrymen': The Literary Culture of 18th Century Exeter.

Week 4, 7 November: 
Alexander Freer, University of Cambridge.
Wordsworth, Coleridge and the Untranslatable.

Week 5, 14 November:
CĂ©line Sabiron, University of Oxford.
Writing the Border: Walter Scott and the Travel Narrative.

Week 6, 21 November:
Paul Whickman, University of Nottingham.
The Promethean Conqueror, the Galilean Serpent and the Jacobin Jesus: Shelley's Interpretation(s) of Jesus Christ.

Week 7, 28 November:
Murdo Macdonald, University of Dundee.
The Significance of James Macpherson's Ossian for the Art of J. M. W. Turner.

Week 8, 5 December:
Rebecca Shuttleworth, University of Leicester.
Rationality, Religion, and Female Dissent: Elizabeth Heyrick (1769–1831).