"Victorian Power" — 2019 Conference Webpage – Midwest Victorian Studies Association

2019 Conference — “Victorian Power” | Texas Christian University, April 26-27

Robert Carr Chapel – Texas Christian University Campus

British world power peaked in the Victorian era, when industrial might, rule of the waves, and cultural “soft power” paved the way for Britain’s “imperial century” or, as its most recent chronicler has called it, Britain’s “victorious century.” And yet nowhere was dominion complete or unchallenged, from frontiers of colonial conflict to internal contestations over religious, political, and civil rights, as well as access to arts, education, and culture. Click the following links to register or download the program.

MVSA’s conference will include seminars open to graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars on the conference theme of Victorian Power. This year’s topics are “The Power of Protocols: The Genres and Institutions of Art,” led by Dr. Pamela Fletcher; “(Dis)locating and Provincializing Victorian Power,” led by Dr. Purna Banerjee; and “Alternative Sources of Power: Victorian Religious Ecologies,” led by Dr. Joshua King.

Conference Highlights

— Friday, April 26

— Saturday, April 27

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Keynote Lecture

The first day of the conference concludes with a keynote talk by Dr. Christopher Otter, Associate Professor in the Department of History at The Ohio State University. Professor Otter specializes in the history of science, technology, the environment, and nutrition, and is the author of The Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800-1910. He is currently writing a book on industrial Britain entitled The Vital State. The title of his talk is “Diet for an Unhealthy Planet: The Victorian Origins of the World Food Crisis.”

Plenary Lecture

The Jane Stedman Plenary Speaker will be Dr. Pamela Fletcher, Professor of Art History at Bowdoin College. Dr. Fletcher is an expert on art and the commercial art market in nineteenth-century England. She is the co-editor of The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London, 1850-1939 and author of Narrating Modernity: The British Problem Picture, 1895-1914, as well as the co-author of the digital humanities endeavor, the London Gallery Project. The title of her talk is “Tears, Laughter, Sentiment, and Scorn: The Power of Victorian Painting.”

Kimbell Art Museum Tour

The Kimbell Art Museum has become one of the premier art museums of the world, famed alike for its distinctive collection and the Louis Kahn building in which it is housed. The docent-led tour of the museum on Friday night (sign ups in advance are required to participate) will point out works such as the earliest verified painting by Michelangelo or Caravaggio’s The Cardsharps.

In addition the Kimbell houses important works by British painters, including the full-length portrait of Miss May Sartoris (widely reproduced on book covers and posters) by Frederic Leighton. Other distinctive British paintings include J. M. W. Turner’s Glaucus and Scylla, Henry Raeburn’s portrait of the Allen brothers, George Stubbs’s Lord Grosvenor’s Arabian Stallion with Groom, and Richard Bonington’s The Grand Canal, Venice and The Interior of Sant’ Ambrogio, Milan.

The current special exhibition in the museum annex designed by Renzo Piano is “The Lure of Dresden: Bellotto [the nephew of Canaletto] at the Court of Saxony,” on display through April 28. Though focused on the spacious landscapes and architecture of eighteenth-century Dresden, the exhibition has a Victorian connection. Dresden’s Zwinger Museum (shown in its earliest decade) became a Victorian tourist mecca after Anna Jameson claimed Raphael’s Sistine Madonna at Dresden as the most perfect work of Renaissance Italy (in Visits and Sketches, 1834, and again in Legends of the Madonna, 1850). George Eliot saw the painting in 1858 and incorporates a reference to it in Mill on the Floss (1860).

Venues and Hotel Accommodations

The conference will take place on the campus of Texas Christian University.

A block of rooms is reserved for MVSA at the Courtyard Marriott Fort Worth University Drive at the price of $139 per night. In order to receive this rate, you must reserve your room by March 21, 2019. You can book rooms by calling 1-800-228-9290 or book online here.

Other nearby hotels in the TCU area include the SpringHill Suites by Marriott Fort Worth, the Fairfield Inn & Suites Fort Worth University Drive, the TownePlace Suites Fort Worth University Area/Medical Center, and the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndam Fort Worth/Medical Center. An additional list can be found here.

Transportation and Parking

The Courtyard Marriott Fort Worth University Drive is one mile from the TCU campus. Some staying at the hotel will have cars; others may prefer the walk past Log Cabin Village and ample green space between the Marriott and campus. We also recommend using Uber and Lyft.

Guests flying to the conference can arrive through Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport or Dallas Love Field. The approximate cost of taking Uber or Lyft from DFW to the TCU area is $40, and from Dallas Love to campus is $45. Public transportation is available from the Trinity Railway Express, which takes passengers from the CentrePort/DFW Airport Station to the T & P Station in downtown Fort Worth; from there, passengers can take Uber or Lyft to the hotel for approximately $10. A new commuter rail line is also available from TexRail, which connects DFW Terminal B to downtown Fort Worth.

If you arrive at Dallas Love, passengers can take the DART green/orange line to Victory Station, and then catch the TRE to Fort Worth. For those traveling by car and driving to campus, parking is available at the Greene Avenue Visitor Parking Lot and at the Frog Alley Parking Garage. See map here.

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