I recently attended a one-day symposium at
the University of Reading (Authors,
Publishers and Readers: Selling and Distributing Literary Cultures, 1880-1940).
It was a tremendous day. Andrew Nash and Nicola Wilson started with two excellent
papers based on their research in the publisher’s archives at Reading. Dr. Nash
focused on nineteenth-century writers who sold their copyright (despite being
advised not to do so by the newly-created Society of Authors). Dr. Wilson
talked about working-class writers published by the Hogarth Press and Chatto
& Windus in the 1930s.
I then went to the “Genre and Marketing”
panel. It was a pleasure to hear Kate Macdonald present her research on Hodder
& Stoughton (a subject that reminded me of my days as an MA student, when I
was working in the H&S archives at the Guildhall Library in London). Claire
Battershill then talked about genre at the Hogarth Press. Claire is a PhD
candidate in the prestigious book history program at the University of Toronto.
Finally, Vincent Trott presented a very engaging paper on the War Books Boom.
Vincent is working on his PhD dissertation at Open University.
During lunch, we had a discussion on the
merits of one-day symposiums versus longer conferences. A young scholar said
she avoids crossing the Atlantic to go to a conference (“simply not worth it”).
Being based in Vancouver, I know how hard it is to get funding to travel to
conferences. Many PhD students cannot afford to fly to a distant place and pay
for four nights of accommodation. So one-day symposiums are a solution (at
least for those who live in the South-East of England and other regions with
extensive transport systems).
It is difficult to suffer from “conference
fatigue” during a one-day symposium. The last panel of the day was composed of
Shafquat Towheed, Mary Hammond and Nickianne Moody. Dr. Towheed talked about
the Reading Experience Database, a helpful tool that Dr. Hammond used for her
own project on the “photoplay” editions of popular novels. Finally, Dr. Moody
presented her research on Boots Book-lovers’ Library. The main problem with
one-day symposiums is that they are not longer…