Discussion Groups

Hi everyone! We are two PhD students (Ava at Columbia, Katie at NYU) hoping to present a panel presentation at the 2026 NACBS conference in Pasadena. Though working on different areas, our research interests overlap around the institutionalization of reform movements and social work between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century. 

I’m hoping to present a paper on Adelaide Procter (1826-1864), examining her role within the Langham Place Circle and her work on behalf of unhoused women at the Providence Row Night Refuge as a window into the broader mid-Victorian shift from women's philanthropy towards institutionalized social work. Katie plans to present a paper on Eilidh MacDougall (1882-1959), examining the shift from voluntary initiatives to rationalized social work and police involvement in sexual offenses against children through the lens of her career. 

We would love to bring in anyone else who is interested in overlapping topics. If you have a…

We are putting together a panel on cities and empire (exploring questions of governance and methodology). One of us is working on 18th century Madras; another looks at the postwar discussions about the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. The exact orientation of the panel will naturally depend on our third panelist.

Thanks!

Daniel Ussishkin (ussishkin@wisc.edu)

I am working on a history of greed and the social/moral boundaries used to contain it. I am currently focused on the factory acts as a way of containing greed in the early industrial period. The panel could either move into labor history, textile production, social policy, or the role of greed in in the emergent political economy.

Thanks,

Penny (ismay@bc.edu)

I would like to put together a panel that focuses on cultural innovations or practices of sociability that emerged or transformed in the mid 17th century. My own paper will examine how the exercise of new, short-lived liberties in the 1640s and 1650s enabled the resolution of old conceptual tensions regarding sociable religious practices, with far-reaching implications for civil society. Papers on early modern sociability or novel cultural practices (contextually situated) would fit nicely.  If interested, please contact me at jim.honeyford@umanitoba.ca by 20 April 2026.

Hi all! I’m hoping to form a methodologically oriented panel on using letters and correspondence to investigate global and imperial topics. My own work looks at family relationships among middle-class British migrants to Argentina, the U.S., New South Wales, and coastal China over the long nineteenth century, with thematic focuses on family structure, gender, migration, and children/childhood. However potential papers need not overlap with this specific geography or themes. I’m most interested in having a conversation about how other historians are thinking about letters as sources broadly, including the contents, letter as a material object, representations of correspondence in British culture, etc.  I imagine this topic will be most relevant to 19^th-20^th century, but would be happy to hear from early modernists if it sounds relevant.

 I’ll be proposing a paper that explores practices of sharing, lending, and forwarding letters in familial and social circles, and considers how these practices built…

Hi! Looking for panelists or papers for a panel that would explore reading practices within the field of British Studies across historical periods and disciplinary approaches. This call is interested in work that examines how texts are read, circulated, interpreted, and taught in Britain and its imperial and global contexts. Possible topics include historical reading cultures, marginalia and annotation, institutional or classroom reading practices, digital reading environments, community or public reading, and the role of reading in shaping literary, cultural, and political life. Interdisciplinary approaches drawing from literary studies, history, cultural studies, media studies, book history, and the history of education are especially welcome. My own paper examines women’s reading practices in nineteenth-century colonial India.

I am a PhD candidate in the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and my research is on the intersection of education and reading cultures in India. Please email me at mohanty2@uwm.edu.

Hi all,

I would like to propose a panel on the histories of water/fish/acclimatization/South Asia. I am keeping it very broad for the time being.

1) If your paper is related to water, fisheries, angling, acclimatization experiments or anything related to these themes, then there is no geographical restriction, it could be from any part of the world.

2) Or else, it may be related to South Asia, preferably on Environment or Science and Technology Studies.

My Individual Paper:

I am also happy to be part of any panel that you organize. I have a paper on the history of angling and acclimatization of European fishes in India.

Hi all,

I am hoping to organize a panel on the interdependence of texts and textiles in late medieval or early modern English literature. My own paper is focused on how literary and embroidery production techniques inform each other in the late fourteenth-century. I would love to hear about any papers related to the metaphorical and material overlaps between texts and textiles in late medieval or early modern English Literature. If you have a paper you would consider presenting, please contact me at niwaters@ttu.edu or nawaters68@gmail.com.

Hi all, are any folks out there interested in presenting on sex work? My own research is on subcultures of sex work in late-Victorian London but those who work on other time periods/geographic areas are v welcome to get in touch! Feel free to email me at wjr429@usask.ca.