Call For Papers
Brontë Society Conference 2025
‘Under an African summer’s sun’
Re-mapping the Brontës: Place, Race and Empire
Bradford Arts Centre*
Saturday 6 September 2025
The celebration of Bradford as UK City of Culture in 2025 provides an apt moment to consider the significance and heritage of place and cultural diversity in and across the Brontës’ lives and works. Haworth in Bradford was the Brontës’ much-loved home, but members of the family visited several cities, including London, Liverpool and Brussels. As children, the young Brontës’ imaginations travelled far and wide too, moving from Ireland to Africa – a region which formed the basis for the fictional worlds of Glasstown and Angria. However, they also wrote during a time of Empire and Western colonialism, the legacies of which continue to be felt today and which have come under increased and necessary scrutiny in recent years.
Approaching Jane Eyre from a postcolonial perspective in 1985, Gayatri Spivak reminded readers that ‘It should not be possible to read nineteenth-century British literature without remembering that imperialism, understood as England’s social mission, was a crucial part of the cultural representation of England to the English.’ Since Spivak’s influential essay, there have been many important postcolonial critiques and insights into the Brontës’ lives and works, especially concerning the figures of Bertha Mason in Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Heathcliff in Emily’s Wuthering Heights. At a time when continued efforts to decolonise the curriculum and museums are being made, this one-day conference looks to expand such discussions by considering what national, global, and transatlantic figures, cultures and places are to be found in the Brontës’ lives, works and heritage, and explores how we might read their legacies today.
We welcome conference paper proposals from academics, postgraduates and enthusiasts who respond to this question using any aspect of the Brontës’ lives and work. Topics may include but are by no means restricted to:
• Bradford and the Brontës
• Africa and the Brontës
• Ireland, Irish migrant cultures, Irish diaspora and the Brontës
• The Brontës and legacies of Western colonialism
• The Brontës and Britain’s black history
• Decolonising the curriculum and museum collections
• Colonialism and material culture
• Slavery and the Brontës
• Forms of whiteness, racism and colonialism
• The Brontës and comparative literature
• Brontë afterlives and the legacies of land, race and colonialism.
Proposals of no more than 300 words for 20-minute papers should be submitted to Diane Fare (diane.fare@bronte.org.uk) by 31 December 2024.
*Bradford Arts Centre is currently Kala Sangam Arts Centre and undergoing a multimillion-pound capital redevelopment project. It will reopen in spring 2025 as Bradford Arts Centre.
The conference will also be transformed into a special issue of Brontë Studies, the official journal of the Brontë Society, in 2026. Further details on the special issue and its associated deadlines will be released once the conference programme is finalised.