International Conference “Victorians Like Us — Progress. A Blessing or a Curse?”

About Victorians Like Us

Research Group 2 – English Culture Studies organised a first conference on the subject “Victorians Like Us: Dialogues, Memories, Trends” in 2012. The idea grew from the activities, developed by a significant number of researchers within the group, on Victorian Studies. These activities have produced a considerable number of Masters and Doctoral thesis along several decades, as well as many publications in books and periodicals. The conference held in 2012 was organised around the following guidelines:

“The Victorian Age is seen, at a distance of more than a century, as a complex and contradictory period, where matrixes of modernity and postmodernity can be found. This two-day colloquium aims to draw attention to the current debates around that period, namely, but not exclusively, under the designation of neovictorianism, focused on new approaches to a period usually circumscribed to the nineteenth century and acknowledges the continuity, in contemporary society, of some of the issues that marked the Victorian Age.

Such current scientific production stems, in part, from the development of Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies, which permitted a fresh look at the nineteenth century, highlighting issues not yet addressed by other areas of study. Therefore, new, non-hegemonic approaches provide many research opportunities and a renewed space for critical production, allowing for a creative dialogue on Victorianism.

Professor Stephan Bann was one of the guest lecturers of the first conference, and more than twenty papers by Portuguese scholars from different Universities and research centres were presented.

Victorians Like Us II, with the subtitle The Victorian household. Power, policies, practices, in 2014, drew attention to a unique platform for the assertion of the British middle classes and one of their values, the home.

Professor Luísa Leal de Faria, Catholic University of Portugal; Professor Rohan McWilliam, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge UK, and Kathryn Ferry, independent writer, lecturer and media commentator, have indulged in very interesting and enlightening lectures about the Victorian age.

More than 40 papers from researchers all over the world were presented overcoming thus the 2012 number of participants.

Encouraged by a highly favourable welcome within the community of Victorian scholars not only in Portugal but also at the international level, we hope to reach a wider and more international public with the organization of a third conference in 2016, aiming at consolidating an event which has already set high standards. If you are interested and think you can contribute, please join us at the third conference “Victorians Like Us III:‘Progress. A blessing or a curse?’on 26-27 October 2016 in Lisbon.