Call for Papers: BSANZ Conference 2017 (Hobart, 22-24 November)

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Connecting the Colonies: Empires and Networks in the History of the Bookautas001144581410_v2

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

22-24 November 2017

Empires of all kinds – commercial, geo-political, bureaucratic – are defined by their peripheries as well as their centres, by the flows of information that maintain or destabilise their structures of authority and control.

BSANZ, in collaboration with the Society for the History of Authorship Reading and Publishing (SHARP), invites scholars and researchers to consider the printed word, the book, and texts of all kinds, as both mechanism and matter of transmission.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on any matters of bibliographical interest, traditional and contemporary. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Commercial empires: the book as a commodity in colonial contexts
  • Across boundaries: print networks across geo-political, commercial or bureaucratic borders
  • The trans-temporal: the afterlife of books and re-imagining of ideas
  • Indigenous cultures, frontier encounters, and the presence or absence of print
  • The stuff of legend: the role of print in constructing colonial and imperial consciousness
  • The book as treasured possession: emotion, ownership and display

Proposals for three-person panel discussions are also welcome.

Some financial assistance towards travel costs may be available for postgraduate students who are presenting papers. Please enquire when submitting your proposal, and include a brief budget outlining your anticipated travel costs.

Proposals – including, a 250-word abstract title of paper, name and institutional affiliation of each author, a brief biography of each author, email address of each author, and 3-5 keywords – should be sent to the convenor, Ian Morrison ian.morrison@education.tas.gov.au.

Presenters must be members of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand.

The deadline for submissions is Friday 31 March 2017.

Image: detail from Captain Austin’s Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, W L Crowther Library, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office