Bloomsbury CHAPTER Postgraduate Conference 2022
Date and time
Location
Online event
Books in the Closet: Suppression, Censorship and the Book. A one-day virtual postgraduate conference, organised by Bloomsbury CHAPTER.
About this event
We are delighted to open registration for a one-day postgraduate conference, organised by Bloomsbury CHAPTER (Communication, History of Authorship, Publishing, Textual Editing and Reading), in association with University College London’s Centre for Publishing and the Institute of English Studies, University of London.
‘Books in the Closet’
What happens when the ‘lifecycle’ of the book is altered, interrupted, or suppressed? How do changing cultural, social, legal, and political circumstances impact authorship, publication, distribution, reading? ‘Books in the Closet’ will feature twenty-minute papers on all aspects and interpretations of the conference theme, covering all regions and time periods. Topics will include:
- ‘Biblionormativity’ and notions of literary or scholarly value
- Bookselling and distribution networks for marginalised forms of literary production, e.g. queer fiction
- Commercial constraints on bookselling and booksellers, past and present
- Impact of changing legal and cultural definitions of obscenity on authors, publishers, distributors, and readers
- Political, moral and economic forms of censorship and cultural regulation, related to all aspects of book production and distribution, including circulating libraries
- Obscured or overlooked historical figures and their legacies in the book trade
- Textual editing practices as related to suppressed or marginalised texts or authors
- Histories of reading ‘against the grain’
Zoom links and joining detials for the conference will be sent to your email following registration. Feel free to contact the conference organisers if you have any difficulties joining via Zoom, or any other questions about the conference: chapter2022.conference@gmail.com
The conference will close with a keynote lecture from Professor Samantha J. Rayner, Director of the Centre for Publishing, University College London, which will be held online and in-person at 6.30PM BST, Roberts Building, G06, University College London. If you would like to attend the keynote, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/una-dillon-and-the-formidable-women-booksellers-of-london-1930s-1960s-tickets-289409861687