Comments & Queries

Comments & Queries are welcome via e-mail. Our address is victstu@indiana.edu.

On the Front Cover is "The Fairy Science" by Linley Sambourne, from The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby by Charles Kingsley (London: Macmillan, 1891): 86. On the back is "Beasts into Men" from the same text, 328.

Announcement

The Midwest Victorian Studies Association announces the Seventeenth Annual Walter L. Arnstein Prize for Dissertation Research in Victorian Studies. It awards $1500 for dissertation research in British Victorian Studies undertaken by a student currently enrolled in a doctoral program in a U.S. or Canadian university. Proposals may be submitted in literature, history, art history, or musicology; however, proposals should have a significant interdisciplinary component that will render them of interest to scholars studying Victorian Britain across a range of disciplines, approaches, and subfields. Forms may be requested from Thomas Prasch at tom.prasch@washburn.edu or by mail: Department of History, Washburn University, 1700 SW College, Topeka, KS 66621. The deadline for applications is 1 February 2008; the award will be announced at the Association's 2008 annual meeting, to be held in Chicago April 18-20. The Association reserves the right not to make an award in a given year if, in the opinion of reviewers, submissions do not justify it.

CFP: Darwin and the Evolution of Victorian Studies. Special Issue of Victorian Studies.

2009 is both the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species. Victorian Studies will mark the occasion with a special issue on "Darwin and the Evolution of Victorian Studies."

Since the publication of VS's first Darwin issue in 1959, the study of Darwin and the relationship of his life and work to Victorian culture has become an industry. In the past twenty-five years alone we have witnessed the publication of the first fifteen volumes of the Darwin correspondence, Darwin's 1836-44 notebooks, major Darwin biographies by Janet Browne and Adrian Desmond and James Moore, and important books by such scholars as Gillian Beer, Bert Bender, Peter Bowler, Sandra Herbert, George Levine, Ronald Numbers, Robert Richards, Rebecca Stott, and Robert Young. In recent years, the study of Darwin has begun to take new directions through examinations of Darwin's writings beyond the Origin and the Journal of Researches, investigations of Darwin's impact on previously overlooked areas (e.g., art and visual culture, psychology and the emotions), and new approaches to Darwinism's impact on Victorian attitudes to gender and courtship, race and empire, literature and publishing. The fact that Darwin's complete writings and 5,000 pieces of his correspondence have been made available in searchable online databases promises to open up Darwin scholarship even further.

Where is the study of Darwin and Darwinism in Victorian culture heading? This special issue will attempt to showcase work that pursues these new approaches or offers even newer ones. I invite essays on all aspects of Darwin and Darwin studies in the Victorian period from scholars working in a range of areas, including history and history of science, literary and cultural criticism, art history, and history of the book.

The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2008. Essays of not more than 8,000 words (including endnotes) should be prepared in MLA Style. Submissions and inquiries should be sent directly to the issue's guest editor:

Jonathan Smith
Humanities Department
University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
jonsmith@umich.edu

Changes at VS

We have had the privilege of compiling this volume with the assistance of an excellent undergraduate intern, Shannon Larson.

Shannon is a senior at Indiana University double-majoring in English and Classical Studies. She is currently working on an honors thesis. Her interests include reading novels and memoirs, traveling by train, and baking sweets. After graduation she plans on moving to Chicago to explore the city and possibly attend culinary art school. She enjoyed working with VS and is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the publishing and editing process. Shannon would like to send her deep gratitude to the staff of VS for giving her an opportunity...