August 6-9, 1998 University of California, Santa Cruz. The Dickens Project
is requesting submissions for a conference on all aspects of violence and
its relationship to the Victorian era. "Though often regarded as a period
of near equanimity, an 'open secret' about the Victorian age was the
relative ubiquity of violence in its society. From the debate over public
executions, to the ways the poor were marshalled and contained, to the
running of empire, to keeping order in the classroom, to personal crises
over the definition and control of the self, the Victorians were fascinated
with and informed by cultures of violence." Possible topics include child
abuse, homophobia, revolutions, mutinies, crime and punishment,
masculinity, animal rights, and racial and ethnic violence. [MD]