Call for Papers

In the early 1820s, after having joined the Carbonari movement to aid Italian national freedom, Lord Byron contemplated moving to South America to help the revolutionary campaigns against Spain’s imperialist forces. Byron even named his yacht the Bolívar after the famous Venezuelan liberator himself, outraging the Austrian governors who were tightening their grip on occupied Italy. When the Carbonari movement collapsed in Italy, he shifted his attention towards Greece, ultimately traveling there in 1823 to support the revolution against the Ottoman Turks. As the Austrian outrage at the Bolívar shows, the South American, Italian, and Greek revolutions were all part of a global cause of liberal resistance. In both his poetry and his life, Byron championed counter-colonial resistance movements from within and without Europe, while his legacy helped to shape emergent nations and the culture of Romantic-era authors and writings around the globe. 

In bicentenary tribute, the IABS 2023 conference will gather work on Byron and Romantic-era resistance while seeking to honor the global diversity of the Romantic age. Our gathering’s theme is “New Worlds,” and we invite papers both on and beyond Byron and his circle. We welcome scholars to contribute papers and convene panels and roundtables related, but not necessarily limited, to the following subjects:

  • New Worlds for Byron and Romantic Studies

  • Byron and #Bigger6 Possibilities

  • Byron and the Americas

  • Reworlding: Utopian and Dystopian Horizons

  • New Worlds of Science in the Romantic Age

  • Revolution and Resistance

  • Migration, Diaspora, Exile, Ex-Patriotism

  • Black Studies, Race, and Byron

  • Indigeneity and Settler Colonialism

  • The Black Atlantic, Slavery, and the Slave Trade

  • Romantic Land- and Bodyscaping

  • Cosmopolitanism and New Worlds

  • Queer, Genderqueer, and Trans Romanticisms

  • Byron, Disability, and Identity

  • Worlds of Materiality in Visual Culture

  • The Poetics and Politics of Space and Climate Change


Please submit a 250-word abstract and bio by 1st March 2023 to Kaila Rose: k.rose@iabsconference2023.org

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Co-Organizer and Host, Omar F. Miranda

University of San Francisco and K-SAA

Co-Organizer, Kaila Rose

The Byron Society of America