The relation between women and the entertainment industry throughout the nineteenth century in Great Britain has been widely studied by Bratton (2011), Davis (2000, 2002), Donkin (1995), Davis and Donkin (1999), Gale and Gardner (2000), Newey (2005), and other scholars since the 1990s. Neo-Victorian appropriations of the nineteenth century on stage were celebrated in the 2016 special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies “Performing the Neo-Victorian” guest edited by Palmer and Poore, who aptly identify the recent and growing presence of the Victorians on the British theatrical scene in an ‘increasing variety of ways’ (1). Some such ways were already scrutinized in Poore’s monograph Heritage, Nostalgia and Modern British Theatre (2012) and later by Sharon Aronofsky Weltman (2020) in her approach to the modern American musical. Yet there are still research avenues in the field to explore: for example, connections between contemporary theatrical productions by women who revisit and re-stage the nineteenth century, or the ways in which Victorian stage practices have informed Neo-Victorian fiction and theatre written by women.
Under the auspices of the Department of English and German (UV) and funded by the GVA Research Project (AICO/2021/225), this conference is the first in a series of events organised as part of a three-year funded research project on women and entrepreneurship in the entertainment industry of the nineteenth century and its afterlives. The project gathers researchers from the Universities of Valencia, Málaga, Salamanca and Seville who working on Victorian and neo-Victorian theatre and fiction.
The conference will be held in person at the Universitat de València with the hope that it will serve as an opportunity to take stock of the range of research undertaken on contemporary appropriations and rewriting of the relation between women and the theatre industry of the nineteenth century. However, if necessary, the conference will be transferred to an online format.
We invite papers and panels that consider (but are not limited to) the following areas of research:
- (Neo-)Victorian re-stagings of the nineteenth century by women
- (Neo-)Victorian female managers and producers
- Fictional recreations of (neo-) Victorian female managers and producers
- Fictional recreations of (neo-) Victorian female managers and producers in film and on the stage
- Rewritings of nineteenth-century spectacle in (neo-) Victorian fiction by women writers
- Rewritings of nineteenth-century spectacle in (neo-) Victorian theatre by women playwrights
Please use the online form to submit proposals of 250 words with a short biography (100 words) by 15 JUNE 2022 (Extended deadline). Speakers are expected to present papers of 20 minutes with Q&A at the end.
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Polly Teale (Artistic director and playwright)
Janice Norwood (University of Hertfordshire)
Beth Palmer (University of Surrey)
Lin Pettersson (Universidad de Málaga)
The program will include an interview with Vanessa Montfort (playwright) by Ana Fernández-Caparrós Turina (UV)
Advisory board:
Rosario Arias (Universidad de Málaga)
Jim Davis (University of Warwick)
Viv Gardner (University of Manchester)
Mª Jesús Lorenzo Modia (Universidade da Coruña)
Kate Newey (University of Exeter)
Patricia Pulham (University of Surrey)
Main Organizers: Laura Monrós-Gaspar (UV), María Gavina Costero (UV), Victoria Puchal Terol (VIU)
Organizers: Miriam Borham Puyal (USAL); Andrea Burgos (UV); Ana Fernández- Caparrós Turina (UV); María Gaviña Costero (UV); Dina Pedro (UV); Sarai Ramos Cedres (UV)
