Tennyson’s poetry was central in forming Victorian responses to the natural world and to scientific advances which underpin today’s emerging fields of environmental studies and plant humanities, as well as interdisciplinary studies of literature and science, literary geographies, literature and the arts, and literature and print culture. His evocative idyllic settings inspired painters from the Pre-Raphaelites to Edward Lear, while his struggles with evolutionary theory engaged with a different vision of ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw’. His poetic sonorities inspired new soundscapes in music and even later film adaptations.  This will be a timely opportunity to explore the varied legacies left to us by the Victorians and their Poet Laureate, and to assess their relevance to the global climate and social justice crises of today.

Our conference welcomes proposals that range widely, from geology to garden design, from the celebration of landscape to warfare and the destruction of landscape, from the minutiae of the ‘Flower in the Crannied Wall’ to the ‘Vastness’ of Space, from the threat of industrialisation and global capitalism to the promise of a utopian future, from imperial land-grabbing to the preservation of local identities and dialects.

Possible topics (among others):

Science and Evolution                                                           

                         Tennyson and “Nature Poets”

Neo-Victorian Afterlives                                                         

                         Tennyson and the Arts, Sculpture, Architecture

Industrialization, Pollution, Extractive Capitalism                     

                         Tennyson and Ruskin, Morris, Meredith, Hardy

Landscape and Gender, Sexuality                                           

                         Tennyson, Music, and Soundscapes

Sites of Devastation, War, and Warfare                                   

                         Tennyson & L.E.L., E. Brontë, EBB, C. Rossetti

Environment and Psychology                                                 

                         Tennyson’s Personal and Literary Networks

Dialect, Regionalism, and the Sense of Place                           

                         Tennyson and Horticulture, Gardens, Farming

Poetry’s Periodical and Print Ecologies                                    

                         Tennyson and the Sea

Walking, Walking Tours, and Poetry                                        

                         Tennyson, Imperialism, and Foreign Lands

The Lives of Flora and/or Fauna                                              

                         Cemeteries, Waste, Dust

Ecologies, Landscapes, and Race                                           

                          Poetry and the Cosmos

Class Hierarchies, Law, and Land Inheritance                           

                         Plant Humanities

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dinah Birch, “Tennyson and Ruskin: Versions of the Modern”; Clare Pettitt, “Tennyson's Garden: Idylls of the King and the Technologization of Nature”; Lindsay Wells, “Tennyson, Horticulture, and the Plant Humanities”

Sponsors’ support has enabled a very affordable conference rate, with affordable housing as well.

Deadline for Abstracts (300 w max.) and Bio (150 w max.): 

31 JANUARY 2026

Address inquiries and submit proposals as attachments to Tennyson2026@bishopg.ac.uk

By 2026, all nine volumes of The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins will be published, including the much-anticipated final volume in the series, Poetry. The 2026 international Hopkins conference will focus on the new research possibilities and provocations afforded by the texts. Hopkins 2026 will be held in historic Salem, Massachusetts (USA), at Salem State University, and will feature a Hopkins display and reception at the Burns Library, Boston College. Topics could include:

• How to reassess Hopkins’ texts because of newly available materials.

• Hopkins the collector (of inscapes; of sensations; the writings of others).

• How to rethink Hopkins’s position in the “collectivity” of Victorian writers.

• Working across genres in Hopkins’s canon: the interdisciplinary possibilities (for example, classical studies; diaries and autobiografiction; philosophy; music; poetry; spiritual writings; sermons; theology; visual art).

• How can we locate Hopkins in the Victorian practice of keeping commonplace books, albums, and the collection of ephemera?

• Revisiting his sketches: was he really a Pre-Raphaelite artist?

• “To collect” also means to form a conclusion, draw an inference, or conclude. What new inferences emerge in your Hopkins work based on new research priorities, or changes in the field of Victorian studies?

• Archiving Hopkins.

(While we would prefer some engagement with the new volumes, you are not obliged to do so.)

We welcome proposals from faculty, independent scholars, and doctoral candidates for 20-minute presentations.

Proposal details

Please submit an abstract (300-words) and a brief biographical note (100 words) to Lesley Higgins no later than 27 October 2025. Please email us if you have any questions.

Final notes

We are planning to pursue publication of the proceedings in two possible journals.

Boston’s Logan Airport is an easy and excellent hub for US and international travel.

Organizers

Jude V. Nixon, Lesley Higgins, Amanda Paxton

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of Isobel Armstrong’s field-defining Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics and Politics (1993; 2nd edition 2019). This roundtable seeks to mark the occasion by gathering a diverse range of panelists to discuss the volume’s lasting impact. How has Armstrong’s study influenced your own work? How has it shaped the field as a whole? What aspects of the book have yet to receive the full recognition they deserve? What are the gaps or oversights in the first and second editions that need to be acknowledged?

The organizers are hoping to feature speakers at different stages of their careers, from graduate students to senior scholars; students and early-career scholars are particularly encouraged to submit proposals. The roundtable will consist of 6-8 speakers, each of whom will present for 7-8 minutes. This will allow time for conversation among the panelists and the audience, as well as potentially a response from Professor Armstrong. Please send proposals of c. 250 words, together with a brief bio (100 words), to Erik Gray (eg2155@columbia.edu) by February 15.