THE 51ST ANNUAL MIDWEST CONFERENCE ON BRITISH STUDIES
The University of Notre Dame
September 23-25, 2005.
2005 MWCBS Graduate Paper Award Winners:
First Prize—Ashley Miller (Indiana University) for "'Every one may feel and see,' Reading bodies in Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals."
Honorable Mention—Eric Wesley Platt (University of Wisconsin) for "Orthodoxy and Diplomacy Revisited: A Re-examination of the Vorstius Affair."
MWCBS Officers 2005
President, Melinda S. Zook, Purdue University
Vice President, Hilda Smith, University of Cincinnati
Secretary-Treasurer, Robert Butler, Elmhurst College
Webmaster: Michael Shirley, Eastern Illinois University
Program Committee 2005
Craig Dionne, Chair, Eastern Michigan University
Theodore Koditschek, University of Missouri, Columbia
Martin Wainwright, University of Akron
Jim Smyth, University of Notre Dame
Anne Clark Bartlett, DePaul University
Local Arrangements Committee 2005
Jim Smyth, University of Notre Dame
Harriet Baldwin, University of Notre Dame
Friday, September 23
Registration/Coffee 9:30-10:30
10:30-12:00 Panels 1-3
1. Imperial Masculinities.
Chair/Commentator: Marion Girard Dorsey, University of New Hampshire.
"The Propaganda of Endurance: Identity, Survival, and British Trench
Newspapers in the First World War." Neal Davidson, University of Tennessee."'An Unspeakable System of Tabus': The Mask of Imperial English Manliness in George Orwell's Burmese Days." Praseeda Gopinath, University of Illinois.
"Ideal Soldiers, Ideal Men: Political Authority and Images of Masculinity in Civil War Era Propaganda." Katherine Worley, Brown University.
"Performing 'The Light Brigade': An Exercise in Historical Theatricality." Elizabeth Cawns, Louisiana State University.
2. Considering the National Idea: British Views on the Nation.
Chair & Commentator: Robert Butler, Elmhurst College.
'A Matter of Great Consequence': Allegiance and Citizenship in Jacobean England." Brett F. Parker, USC Upstate.
"Architecture, History, and National Consciousness in the Construction of the New Houses of Parliament, 1836-1868." Joseph Coohill, Pennsylvania State University, New Kensington.
"Preserving Empires: British Intellectuals Confront Eastern Europe, 1914-1918." Robert McCormick, University of South Carolina Upstate.
"A Victorian Picture of Colonial Ambivalence: WD Arnold's Essays on the State of British India." Diana Gander Ostrander, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
3. Rewriting Women Authors and Reading Formations.
Chair: Anne Clark Bartlett, DePaul University.
"The First Female Detectives in British Fiction." Dagni Bredesen, Eastern Illinois University.
"'...freedom, in company, enriched': Richardson's Pilgrimage and the 'neutral territory' of the Women's Club." Elizabeth F. Evans. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"From Framed-Novelle to Realist Novel: Jane Barker's Influence on the Development of the Novel." Ana Maria Cosme, Marquette University.
"Toru Dutt: Reading, Writing, and Re-forming an Empire." Stacey Coulter, Claremont Graduate University.
Audience Comments
Lunch on your own
1:30-3:00 Panels 4-6
4. "Two Queens and Disraeli: The Image of the British Monarchy in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century."
Chair: Philip Hicks, Chair of the Humanistic Studies, Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana.
"'The Stomach of a Queen': or Size Matters: How the body of Queen Anne has affected her Historical Image." Robert O. Bucholz, Loyola University of Chicago."The Victorian Monarchy in the Conservative Press: A Neglected Discourse." James J. Sack, University of Illinois at Chicago.
"Disraeli, Empire, and Diseased Appetites." William M. Kuhn, Carthage College.
Commentator: Walter L. Arnstein, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
5. "Pre-Modern and Post-Human: Bodies, Borders, and Histories" BABEL Working Group
Chair: Christine Neufeld, Eastern Michigan University.
"Violating the Body of Scholarship, or, Judith: The Fyborgs and the Critics" Mary K. Ramsey.
"Post-Incarnated and Divine Machine Bodies" Myra Seaman, College of Charleston.
"'honour desires the body's pain': The Posthuman Circuits of Chivalric Desire in Chretien de Troyes' Yvain and the Iraq War" Eileen A. Joy, Coastal Carolina University.
"Medieval English Hagiography and the Insular Imaginary" Anne Clark Bartlett,
DePaul University.Audience Comments
6. Imperialisms and Their Forms in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Chair & Commentator Mark F. Proudman, Oxford University.
"The Second Afghan War and the Birth of Liberal Imperialism" Stephanie Laffer, Florida State University.
"Empire Builders and Mushroom Gentlemen: The Meanings of Money in Colonial Nigeria." Robin Hermann, Middle Tennessee State University.
"'Far beyond the capabilities of such men': The Jamaica and Empire Trade Exhibition and the Political Economy of Inter-war Colonialism" Deborah Hughes, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
3:30-5:00 Panels 7 - 9
7. Political and Social Change in Scotland, 1945-1970.
Chair: Dr. James A. Schmiechen, Central Michigan University
"'A very black shadow indeed': Public Debate in Scotland over Britain's 1961 Application to Join the EEC" Andrew D. Devenney, Saginaw Valley State University.
"Eschewing the obvious: the Scottish political landscape from 1945 to 1970"
Dr. Ewen A. Cameron, University of Edinburgh"'Master Plans' and Periphery Estates: Modernism, Utopianism and Comprehensive Urban Planning in Glasgow, 1945-68" Matthew P. McCabe, Central Michigan University.
Commentator: Dr. Christopher Harvie, University of Tübingen
8. Seeing God: Religion and Vision in the Literary Text.
Chair: Jim Knapp, Eastern Michigan University.
Cymbeline: Visualizing the Divine and Dying for the Other Ken Jackson, Assistant Professor, English, Wayne State University.
"The justice of sensuous life": George Eliot's Late Poetry and Spinoza's Intellectual Love of God Graham Hammill, University of Notre Dame.
Synesthesia, Chiasm, & Religious Experience: Shakespeare, Spenser, & the Ineffable James A. Knapp, Eastern Michigan University.
Commentator: Kevin Hart, University of Notre Dame.
9. The British-Irish Union: New Perspectives
Chair & Commentator: Emmet Larkin, University of Chicago.
"'Did you think it necessary to unite with the Irish parliament, and yet hesitate to identify with the people?': The Act of Union and the Debate on Catholic Emancipation in 1805"Michele Aileen O'Neill, University of Chicago.
"British Unionism in the Age of O'Connell" Douglas Kanter, University of Chicago.
"Sir Antony MacDonnell and the Limits of Constructive Unionism," M. L. Brillman, University of Chicago.
5:30 Reception by the British Consul.
6:30 Dinner and Plenary I
"'Scottish Intellectuals and the Condition of Where?
Loyalty versus Contract from the Enlightenment to the Present.'"Christopher Harvie, Tübingen University.
Saturday, September 24
8:45-10:15 Panels 10-12
10. International Contact Zones.
Chair & Commentator: Hilda Smith, University of Cincinnati.
"The Enlightenment and the English College at Douai, 1715-1794. Christopher Strangeman, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
"'slip into an entire delusion': Authenticity, the French Revolution, and British Romantic Aesthetics." Ann Frank Wake, Elmhurst College.
"Isaiah Berlin beyond the Context of British Liberalism," Arie Dubnov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
11. Ethics and Modernist Aesthetics.
Chair & Commentator: William Johnsen, Michigan State University.
"Godot as a 'Mute Sign': Reconfiguring the Political in S. Beckett's Waiting for Godot." Olga Vyacheslavovna Medvedeva, Purdue University.
"Shriveled Potatoes, Bilious Ghosts, and a Deafmute Idiot With Goggle Eyes: Grotesque Ruptures of Imperialism in Ulysses." Danizete Martinez, University of New Mexico.
"Ambiguous Positionings: Spatializing the Metropole and Gender in Mrs. Dalloway," Judi Nitsch, Indiana University.
"'Tales of Distant Countries': Fantasy as Alternative Reality in Joyce's 'Eveline.'" Jason Stupp, St. Bonaventure University.
12. Prophets and Martyrs.
Chair & Commentator: Newton Key, Eastern Illinois University.
"Violence and the apocalyptic household in the prophesies of Anne Wentworth." Warren Johnston, University of Saskatchewan.
Gender Politics and Rachel Speght's 'The Dreame'" Amber Cobb Vazquez, Eastern Michigan University.
"Mixed Emotions: Feeling and Believing in Spiera and Faustus." Aaron McCollough, University of Michigan.
10:30-12:00 Panels 13-16
13. Imperialism and National Identity, 1815-1876.
Chair & Commentator: Phyllis Soybel, College of Lake County
"Subjects and Aliens: Law and National Identity, 1815-1870." Caitlin Anderson, Trinity College, Cambridge.
"The Eastern Question: English Nationalism and Imperialism in the Discourse of the Bulgarian Agitation." Stoyan Tchaprozov, University of Minnesota.
"'Extending British interests, British influence, and the British empire.' Missionaries and British Identity, 1790-1850." Roger B. Beck, Eastern Illinois University.
14. From "The Unfortunate Comedy" to "Beyond Its Time":
All's Well that Ends Well, Early Modern Heroines, and the Transformation of
Shakespearian Comedy.
Chair: Gary Waller, Purchase College, State University of New York
"Sister/Lover, Wise Woman/Witch: Helena in All's Well that Ends Well." Regina Buccola, Roosevelt University
"'She is in the right': Biblical Justice in All's Well that Ends Well." Michele Osherow, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
"Human Wonder and Divine Motherhood: Resurrection Fantasies in the Concluding Scenes of All's Well that Ends Well and The Winter's Tale" Gary Waller, Purchase College, State University of New York.
Commentator: Craig Dionne, Eastern Michigan University.
15. Knowing Women: Epistemology and Feminine Authority, 1776-1841.
Chair & Commetator: Ann Frank Wake, Elmhurst College.
"The Serpent and the Dove: Charlotte Tonna's Evangelical Epistemology" Bryan Rasmussen, Indiana University, Bloomington.
"Nonsense new and old": Hester Thrale and the Hypertextual Subject. Celia Rasmussen, Indiana University.
"Sweet to She Who Tries and Tastes Them": Cosmopolitanism and National Identity in Sydney Owenson's The Wild Irish Girl." Kyle Schlabach, Indiana University.
16. Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism and the Construction of Identity in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
Chair & Commentator: Ted Koditschek,
"Politics, Identity and the Birth of Irish Nationalism" Paddy McNally of University College, Worcester.
''An Uproar of Liberalism': British National Identity, Politics and the Path to
Jewish Emancipation, 1753-1858" Alan Singer, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee"Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and Exploration." Jason Antley, University of Florida.
12:15 - Lunch & Plenary II
"...to be announced..."
Winston James, Columbia University
2:15-3:30 Panels 17-20
17. Radical Religion in Early Tudor England.
Chair: Carole Levin, Willa Cather Professor of History, University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
"Spinning the Story: John Lambert and the Politics of Religious Dissention in Tudor England." Amy Gant, Department of History, University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
Peace with Satan: George Joye's arguments against religious unity in Henrian England." Karl Gunther, Department of History, Northwestern University.
"As constant a Woman in the Faith of Christ, as ever was upon the Earth": John Foxe and the disobedience of Prest's Wife." Kory Bajus, Department of History, University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
Commentator: Megan Hickerson, Tulane University.
18. Intention and the Instability of Renaissance Devotional Texts.
Chair & Commentator: Gary Waller, Purchase College, State University of New York
"The Pride of Arrangement in George Herbert's "Affliction" Poems." Neal Migan, Baker College
"'There is more fear, therefore more cause': John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and Spiritual Affect." Mardy Philippian, Jr., Simpson University.
"The Flesh and the Word: John Donne, Desire and the 'Holy Sonnets'" Jeremiah Crotser, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
"Invocation of Light in John Milton's Paradise Lost." Erin Heather Vander Wall, Eastern Michigan University.
19. Transatlantic Dialogues and Cultural Exchange.
Chair & Commentator: Barry J. Faulk, Florida State University.
"The Bad American in The Good Soldier: The American Consumer and the Development of English Cultural Capital." Carla Hobson, Florida State University.
"The Hollywoodization of British Memory: Terence Davies' The Long Day Closes." Christine Sprengler, University of Western Ontario.
"'Maga': the Moderate: Blackwood's Magazine and the Roots of Transatlantic Literary Studies." Nicholas Mason, Brigham Young University.
20. Imagining Empire: Commercialism and the New World.
Chair & Commentator: Jason Kelly, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
"'Tales of Want and Faith': Commercial Imperialism, British Propaganda, and American Diplomacy, 1783-1789." Amy Looney, University of Tennessee.
"The Attracting of 'Gravity' and Empire in Pownall's Administration of the Colonies." Scott Breuninger, University of South Dakota.
"The Rise and Fall of Governor George Scott: A British American migrant to the Ceded Islands," Mark Quintanilla, Hannibal-LaGrange College.
3:45-5:15 Panels 21-23
21. The Feminine Dimension of Empire.
Chair & Commentator: Martin Wainwright, University of Akron.
"Effeminizing India: Colonial Masculinity in Company India." Joe Sramek, SUNY.
"Florence Marryatt, Author Of Sketches Of Anglo-Indian Life And Character, And The Indians" Nupur Chaudhuri, Texas Southern University.
"British Women on the Frontiers of Empire in Eastern Australia in the 1820s and 1830s" Janet Doust, Australian National University.
22. Religious Controversy in Early Modern England.
Chair & Commentator: Scott Breuninger, University of South Dakota.
"Adoption and Adaptation of Joachim of Fiore in Tudor-Stuart England." David Gehring, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"Orthodoxy and Diplomacy Revisted: A Re-examinatioon of the Vorstius Affair." Eric Platt, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"William Sherlock, the Question of Allegiance, and the Secularization of Politics after the Revolution of 1688/89."Christian Griggs, Purdue University.
23. Malory and Gender.Chair: April Toadvine, Purdue University.
"Dinidan in Drag: Heteronormativity challenged in Malory's Mort D'Arthur" Richard Sévère, Purdue University.
"Gender, Noun-Love, and Verb-Love in Malory" Emily Redman, Purdue Univeristy.
"Quest Maidens in Malory: Who Are They and What Role Do They Play?" Karen Robinson, Purdue University.
"Twirling the Triangle: Gendered Manipulation of Triangular Desire in Malory" Nancy Kerns, Purdue University.
Commentator: Martin Shichtman, Eastern Michigan University.
Dinner on your own
Sunday, September 25
8:45-10-:15 Panels 24-26
24. Displacing the Female: Repressive Social Systems and the Victorian Women Who Resist Them.
Chair & Commentator: Sara L. Maurer, University of Notre Dame.
"Female Legal Rights in Novels by the Brontës: Marital Rights, Property Rights, and Contract Enforceability in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights" Cynthia M. VanSickle, McHenry County College.
"'I Would Have Her Branded on the Face': Rosa Dartle's Misplaced Anger in
David Copperfield." Nancy L. Welter, Wayne State University.
25. Rethinking Authors and Canons.
Chair: Theodore Koditschek, University of Missouri, Columbia.
"Un-Erasing Crusoe: Farther Adventures in the Nineteenth Century." Melissa Free, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"Women, Property, and Wages: Aurora Leigh and Nineteenth Century Economic Thought." Lana Dalley, University of Washington.
"'Othering' Tess: Hardy's Homegrown Alterity." Keely Bursik, Eastern Michigan University.
"Alongside Modernism: Patrick Hamilton's Sociological Fiction," Rosemary Johnsen, Michigan State University.
Audience Comments.
26. Framing Ireland: History and Genres.
Chair & Commentator: Mary Burgess, University of Notre Dame.
"The Romance with the Celtic Grail," Julianne Bruneau, University of Notre Dame.
'The 'Lillibullero,' Limerick and the Wild Geese: Themes of Irish Exile in Sterne's Tristram Shandy." Tyler Crogg, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.
'When the Drink is in, the Truth Comes out,' Exploring the Nature of Irish Nationalist Opinion 1914-1916. Christopher Kennedy, Providence College.
"Contemporary Irish Life Writing, Postmodern Memoir." Christopher Malone, Northeastern State University, Oklahoma.
10:30-12:00 Panels 27-29
27. Marriage and Gender in Eighteenth Century.
Chair & Commentator: Laura George, Eastern Michigan University.
"Keeping it Quiet: Marital Separation by Deed in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England." Tammy Moore, University of New Brunswick.
"'The Happy State': Marriage as Business Transaction in The School for Scandal." Brittany Deschler, St. Bonaventure University.
"'The Prejudices and Conventions of Gender and Class in Jonathan Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room" and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's "The Reasons that Induced Dr. Swift to Write a Poem call'd the Lady's Dressing Room." Siobhan B. Kane, St. Bonaventure University.
28. Physiology in Late Nineteenth Century England.
Chair & Commentator: Andrea Kaston Tange, Eastern Michigan University.
"'Every one may feel and see': Reading Bodies in Darwin's Expression." Ashley Miller, Indiana University Bloomington.
"'Preaching to the Nerves': Physiology, Reading, and the Sensation Novel." Amy Sansbury Manning, Indiana University Bloomington.
"Shame, Snake Bites and Savagery: British Nationalism and Imperialism in the Vivisection Debates of the Late Nineteenth Century." Madeleine Thompson. Indiana University Bloomington.
29. Challenging Victorian Hegemony.
Chair & Commentator: Christopher Frank, University of Manitoba.
"Beauty and the Eye of the Beholder: The Narrator-As-Critic in Rossetti's 'Jenny'" Grace Waitman, Indiana University-Bloomington.
"Examples of Atonement for Passion and Ambition by Constance Louisa Maynard (1849-1935)." Pauline Phipps, University of Windsor.
"A Missing Voice: English Catholicism and the Abolition Movement in Victorian Britain." Eric G. Tenbus, Central Missouri State University.