Forthcoming Brontë Society, Aphra Behn, and Women's Letters Conferences

Aphra Behn (Europe) Society

A trio of interesting conferences to add to your diaries are coming up in the near future including Aphra Behn & her Restoration, The Brontë Society's How beautiful the earth is still, and Quills and Characters: approaches to women’s letters, 1660-1860

From July 2 - July 4 July, 2024, the Aphra Behn (Europe) Society will meet for its eighth international in-person conference, Aphra Behn & her Restoration, at the University of Kent which lies between the village of Harbledown (Aphra Behn’s birthplace) and the city of Canterbury (where she grew up).

Running alongside the conference will be an Aphra Behn Festival, featuring the celebration of a new life-size bronze statue of Behn in her birthplace.

On September 9, 2023, The Brontë Society's one-day conference How beautiful the earth is still will respond to the Brontë Parsonage Museum's 'Year of the Wild', drawing on the theme of the natural world. This year, the Museum’s programme of events and activities centres around The Brontës and the Wild, a special exhibition that explores and celebrates all things connected with the landscape inextricably linked with the Brontës.

Keynote speaker is Simon Warner, a landscape photographer and filmmaker. The conference will be live-streamed, so it will be possible to attend both in-person at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds or online. Both members and non-members are welcome to attend.

Finally, the online Conference Quills and Characters: approaches to women’s letters, 1660-1860 runs September 1-2 at Chawton House in Hampshire. This will mark the end of the Quills and Characters exhibition and bring together scholars working on letters to share their projects and approaches, and to consider both the possibilities afforded by the digital world and its limitations. Keynote Speakers will be Professor Nicole Pohl and  Professor Kathryn Sutherland.