Cultures of Correspondence Symposium
The linked symposia, hosted consecutively by Baylor University and Texas A&M University, build upon both institutions' substantial collections of 18th- and 19th-century archival materials and their commitment to creating accessible digital archives and scholarship.
Foregrounding 18th- and 19th-century letters, the symposia focus upon a range of issues—including the curation and maintenance of letters in library archives and digital collections, the theory and practice of editing letters in print and digital formats, the use of letters in scholarly research and publications, and pedagogical approaches to letters in the classroom. The complementary symposia include keynotes, panels and roundtables, and opportunities for workshops/hands-on events.
Participants in the symposia will think together about best practices for incorporating letters in their research, and editing letters in print and digital formats. They will gain hands-on experience transcribing letters, they will acquire knowledge of tools that can facilitate editing and digitizing letters, and they will build networks with other scholars working with letters for future collaborations.
The symposia are free and open to faculty, students and the general public. Online registration for those planning to attend the February 7-8 sessions at Armstrong Browning Library & Museum in-person is closed. If you plan to attend in-person, contact Christi Klempnauer by email or call (254) 710-4968 for more information. Virtual registration for Part I at Armstrong Browning Library & Museum is available using the Zoom Webinar links below.
Symposium Keynote Speakers & Sessions
Baylor University Session (Part I)
February 7-8, 2025
Armstrong Browning Library & Museum
Friday, February 7, 2025
10:00 a.m.
Check-In & Breakfast
11:00 a.m.
Keynote Lecture: Letters, Victorian Sociability, and Elizabeth Gaskell
Anne Longmuir, Professor of English, Kansas State University
Anne Longmuir is Professor of English at Kansas State University. She has published articles and book chapters on Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, and others. She co-edited Victorian Literature: Criticism and Debates (Routledge, 2015) with Lee Behlman (Montclair State University). Her most recent book, John Ruskin and the Victorian Woman Writer (Routledge, 2025), explores the personal and literary relationships of Victorian art critic and social theorist John Ruskin with four major nineteenth-century women writers.
12:30 p.m.
Lunch
1:45 p.m.
Digitization and Letterpress Workshop (limit 30 pre-registered participants)
Moody Memorial Library
3:30 p.m.
Roundtable: Letters, Race, and Empire
“Letters and the Promise of Documenting Empire”
Olivera Jokić, John Jay College of the City University of New York
Olivera Jokić is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the Gender Studies Program at John Jay College of the City University of New York. She is interested in relationships between literary writing and historical documentation, especially in the archives of colonialism and documentation of marginal experiences; in the constitution of archives; in writing about gender and histories of “women’s writing.” She is a co-editor of two recent journal special issues about archives and popular culture and translator into English of Past: An Introduction to the Problem (Iskra Books and kuda.org, 2024), a collaborative book project of philosopher Boris Buden, filmmaker Želimir Žilnik, and several art collectives.
“Caribbean Correspondence: Methods for Reading Overseer, Abolitionist, and Missionary Letters from the British West Indies”
Rebecca Schneider, New Mexico Highlands University
Rebecca Schneider is an assistant professor of English at New Mexico Highlands University where she teaches classes ranging from first-year composition to graduate research methods, including British literature courses after 1700. In her research, Rebecca specializes in the 18th and 19th century colonial Caribbean as well as literary field work and archival research. She is a founding member of the Bigger 6 Collective, which was formed to challenge structural racism in the academic study of Romanticism.
“Subversive Mobility: Epistolary Novels, Reverse Ethnographies, and the British Empire”
Jennifer Hargrave, Baylor University
Jennifer L. Hargrave is Assistant Professor of English at Baylor University. She focuses on Romanticism and its global entanglements, specifically Anglo-Chinese relations prior to the first Opium War. Her current book project—The Romantic Reinvention of Imperial China, 1759–1842—recovers a history of intellectual exchanges between the British and Chinese empires. Her most recent and forthcoming publications appear in Oriental Networks: Culture, Commerce, and Communication in the Long Eighteenth Century; 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era; The Wordsworth Circle; and Studies in Philology. She serves as the Literature Book Reviews editor for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies.
Saturday, February 8, 2025
8:30 a.m.
Check-In & Breakfast
9:00 a.m.
Roundtable: Future Directions in Correspondence and Archival Research
“The Archives of English Studies”
Matt Poland, University of Washington
Matt Poland is a lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Washington and a research fellow at Marsh's Library in Dublin. He writes and teaches about transnational approaches to Victorian literature and the history of literary studies. His most recent publication is a co-edited special issue of Victorian Periodicals Review about "Race and Transnationalism," and his work has also appeared in the Journal of Victorian Culture, George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies, and elsewhere.
“'This is private’: Personal Correspondence, Public Work, and the Imperial Networks of Aristocratic Women”
Martha Groppo, Eastern Kentucky University
Martha Groppo is an assistant professor of history at Eastern Kentucky University. Her book project, Voices Crying in the Wilderness: Aristocratic Women, Imperial Networks, and Rural Healthcare, 1879-1939, uses the correspondence of nurses, colonial officials, and aristocratic women to examine a network of rural nursing associations that extended across the British World in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Her research has been supported by fellowships at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Princeton University Center for Human Values, Barbara Bates Center for the History of Nursing, and the Consortium for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.
"Inspiration as Dialogue: The Making of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s A Drama of Exile"
Denae Dyck, Texas State University
Denae Dyck is Assistant Professor of English at Texas State University. Her research and teaching interests include nineteenth-century British literature and culture, women’s writing, poetry, and religion/spirituality. She is the author of Biblical Wisdom and the Victorian Literary Imagination (Bloomsbury, 2024), and her articles have appeared in journals such as Victorian Poetry, Victorian Popular Fictions Journal, Victorian Review, and European Romantic Review.
“Translating Life and Love in the Browning Letters”
Allison Reising, Independent Scholar
Allison Scheidegger Reising is an independent scholar who recently completed her PhD at Baylor University. Her research is on classical reception in the nineteenth century, and her articles have appeared in Victorian Poetryand the Eudora Welty Review. She curated the archival exhibition “Puppy Love: An Exploration of Victorian Pet-Owner Relationships,” which was on display at the Armstrong Browning Library in Spring 2022.
10:00 a.m.
Armstrong Browning Library Tour, Rare Materials Display, and Transcription Workshop
(limit 30 pre-registered participants)
11:30 a.m.
Lunch
12:30 p.m.
Keynote Lecture: ‘An Editor’s duty is indeed that of most danger’: Editing the Elizabeth Montagu Correspondence Online
Nicole Pohl, Professor Emerita in Early Modern Literature and Critical Theory, Oxford Brookes University, and Academic Editor of Electronic Enlightenment, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University
Nicole Pohl is Professor Emerita at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Elizabeth Montagu Correspondence Online (EMCO), and the Academic Editor of Electronic Enlightenment: Lives and Letters, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. She has published The Letters of Sarah Scott (2013), and widely on women’s social networks across Europe.
Registration for Part I & Additional Details
Registration for the Zoom Webinar sessions will be open through the symposium; however, registration for the in-person sessions closed on Sunday, January 26. We are able to accommodate a few more in-person attendees. Contact Christi Klempnauer by email or at (254) 710-4968 for assistance.
Waco Visitors Guide: Hotels, Restaurants & More (PDF)
Campus Parking (Interactive Map) Virtual Parking Permit (Required for Friday Sessions Only)
Texas A&M Session (Part II)
February 14-15, 2025
Tim Fulford, Professor of English, De Montfort University
Hilary Havens, Associate Professor and Director of the Digital Humanities Interdisciplinary Program, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Brent Kinser, Professor of English, Western Carolina University
Leon Litvack, Professor of English, Queen’s University Belfast
Visit the Texas A&M Cultures of Correspondence Page Part Two Registration
For more information or questions, please reach out to the symposia organizers:
Baylor: Dr. Kristen Pond (kristen_pond at baylor.edu)
Texas A&M: Dr. Susan Egenolf (s-egenolf at tamu.edu) and Dr. Maura Ives (m-ives at tamu.edu)
We are grateful for the generous support of our sponsors:
- Armstrong Browning Library & Museum, Baylor University
- Brown Foundation
- The Baylor University Graduate School
- Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR), Texas A&M University
- College of Arts & Sciences, Texas A&M University
- Departments of English at Baylor University and Texas A&M University
- Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, Texas A&M University
- Division of Research, Arts & Humanities Fellowship, Texas A&M University