The Wordsworth
Conference Foundation announces
The 46th Wordsworth Summer
Conference 2017
Monday 7 August to
Thursday 17 August at Rydal Hall, Cumbria
Call for Papers and Bursary
Applications
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Keynote Lecturers
Richard Gravil Matthew
Bevis James Engell
Meiko O’Halloran Nick Halmi
Alexandra Harris Felicity
James Michael O’Neill
Fiona Robertson Fiona Stafford
Heidi Thomson Kasahara Yorimichi
Wordsworth Summer Conference 2017 Blog:
www.wcf-summer.blogspot.co.uk
www.wcf-summer.blogspot.co.uk
The 2017 Wordsworth Summer Conference at elegant Rydal
Hall will be the 46th since Richard Wordsworth’s inaugural
conference gathering in 1970. This year we continue the format pioneered by
Richard, mingling lectures, papers and lively academic debate with energetic
fell walking, picturesque rambles, and excursions to places of Wordsworthian
and Romantic interest. Upper and Lower Rydal Falls are within the grounds of
the Hall, and Rydal Mount - Wordsworth’s home from 1813 until 1850 - is a
two-minute walk away. In the evenings participants relax with poetry and music
in the bar at Rydal Hall, wander in the terraced garden, or stroll down to
Rydal water for a moonlight swim …
By courtesy of the Wordsworth Trust, our opening night will include a
reception at the Wordsworth Museum
followed by a candle light visit to Dove Cottage. In 2017 our excursions are
likely to include historic Ambleside and old Wordsworthshire. Among our hikes
will be Nab Scar and Helm Crag with further climbs to be confirmed. There will
be an opportunity to explore the treasures of the Wordsworth Trust’s
collections with the curator Jeff Cowton, and an evening visit to Wordsworth's
Rydal Mount and garden with a glass of wine.
Format and Costs: The 2017 Summer Conference
is in two parts of 5 days each, with a changeover day on Saturday 12 August. The
registration fee, which includes excursions, has been maintained at 2016 levels
despite some increases in costs. This offers exceptional value at £250 for ten
days and £175 for five days. For postgraduates, we offer a generous range of
bursary funds (see below) to reduce rates for attendance. All participants will
take all meals at Rydal Hall. Full Board at Rydal Hall Diocesan Conference Centre is
available, and at Rydal Hall Youth Centre on the same site. Non-resident rates
and a day rate are also available. For accommodation and related costs please
visit
Non-resident registration: from £90 per day (inclusive of lunch,
dinner, excursions, receptions).
For additional information
about the Wordsworth Summer Conference, please visit
And please visit our blog at
Plus our Facebook page at
Call for Papers
We invite proposals for
twenty-minute papers on all aspects of William Wordsworth, his contemporaries
and the Romantic period. Papers that identify a bicentenary theme, 1817–2017, will
be welcomed but this is not intended as an exclusive requirement. Please note that
participants presenting papers must attend as full participants for either Part
1 or Part 2, or the whole ten-day conference.
Proposals: 250 word proposals for papers of no more than 2750 words,
together with a brief autobiographical paragraph, unformatted, should occupy no
more than 2 sides of A4 in MS Word format. Please do include your name,
institution and e-mail address on the abstract. Please do not send proposals
as a pdf file as they will be copied into a composite document. Proposals
should be e-mailed by 15 April 2017 to
All other enquiries
about accommodation, costs etc. should be e-mailed to the Conference
Administrator, Carrie Taylor, at
carriegrasmere@aol.com
Nicholas Roe, Conference Director
Sharon Tai, Postgraduate Representative
Carrie Taylor, Wordsworth Conference
Foundation Administrator
The Wordsworth Conference Foundation is
a registered charity, number 1124319
Bursaries for the 2017 Wordsworth Summer
Conference
Ten bursaries of £350 are
available for the 2017 conference. These bursaries are intended to enable young
scholars, principally at postgraduate and early post-doctoral level, to enjoy
ten active and stimulating days in the unique environment of Rydal and
Grasmere, for about half the cost of the event. Please bring this announcement
to the attention of qualifying applicants.
5 Richard Wordsworth
Bursaries £350 for Postgraduate or Postdoctoral applicants working in English
or Anglo-American Romanticism
5 Ena Wordsworth Bursaries
£350 for students working on Wordsworth or in the Field of English Romanticism
Terms and Conditions: Bursaries are intended to meet approximately half of
the cost of attending the conference. Holders of bursaries will be so
designated on the list of participants or the conference programme. The bursary will be applied in the first instance to conference
fees, and the balance to accommodation in the new Rydal Hall Youth Centre,
making the total cost of the conference, to a bursar, either £420 (5 person dormitory)
or £470 (2 person dormitory) for the full ten-day conference programme and ten
nights’ full board. Bursars are expected to attend all lectures, papers and
conference events, and acceptance of a bursary implies an undertaking to do so.
Your application should be in
the form of a Word attachment (not PDF) containing a paper proposal of 300
words, together with a short unformatted c.v. in the same file, the entire
application being not more than two sides of A4 (the file will be copied and
pasted into a composite file, so please avoid elaborate formatting). Applicants
should also arrange for one academic reference to be sent independently to the
same email address, verifying the applicant’s status and country of residence.
Candidates need not specify which bursary they are applying for. They will
automatically be considered for any bursary for which they are eligible.
Please note that we may award
a bursary but without having space to include the proposed paper on the
conference programme: such papers may, however, be ‘taken as read’, that is,
made available in print form at the conference, if the proposer so
chooses. Papers should be not longer
than 2750 words (rapid delivery invariably impedes communication) and may
address any area of Romanticism.
