Overview

Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom announces a call for assignments that model inclusive, antiracist, antiableist, and anticolonial assignment practices for teaching the nineteenth century. Anyone with relevant professional interests is encouraged to apply, but the organizers are especially interested in submissions from early-career scholars and those with backgrounds that are underrepresented in Victorian Studies.

Extended Submission Deadline: July 7, 2023

Full Solicitation

Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom (UVC) is a digital humanities project that reimagines how to teach Victorian Studies through a positive, race-conscious lens. UVC’s site launched in 2021 and publishes a variety of pedagogical materials, including peer-reviewed syllabi, peer-reviewed lesson plans, peer-reviewed assignments, and Zoomcasts (i.e., video interviews with scholars engaged in important antiracist classroom work). The site has since been well-received by Victorianists and has as a whole been peer-reviewed for Reviews in Digital Humanities.

UVC is looking for more assignments on Victorian and Neo-Victorian materials to publish in its Assignments section. Our goal is to provide examples of innovative assignments used in colleges and universities throughout the world so that instructors can adapt them for their own teaching contexts. We are seeking assignments from instructors whose work in the classroom aligns with the mission of UVC. The assignments can target different levels of students (Undergraduates/Graduates, Majors/Non-majors) and should be antiracist, antiableist and anticolonialist in terms of the content with which students are asked to engage and/or the design and pedagogical grounding of the assignment itself. They should also be student-centered and seek to empower students through different forms of critical and/or creative engagement. For this call, the organizers are particularly interested in assignments with a multimodal or public humanities focus.

While these assignments should feature a nineteenth-century component, they do not need to be exclusively used for the Victorianist classroom. For example, an assignment could be created for a Literature & Film course that has a segment on Victorian monsters or a Digital Humanities course that includes digital projects about the nineteenth century. These assignments can be original assignments from courses already taught, revised versions of previously used assignments, or assignments that have been designed but not yet deployed in a course setting.

UVC has a simple submission process. For this call, the organizers request a copy of the assignment as well as short answers to a few questions that ask about the history of the assignment; its pedagogical rationale, aims, and visions; and its connection to the UVC mission. These materials will be reviewed by the assignment committee and select instructors will be invited to submit an essay (1,500–2,000 words) that contextualizes the assignment for others to use in different institutions all over the world. UVC will also ask contributors to participate in the peer review process by attending a workshop with the assignment committee and other accepted assignment contributors. Assignments and essays will then be published on our website as open-access resources.

The extended deadline for submissions is July 7, 2023.  Please submit your assignment and responses directly through this Google form. (Note: Google log in is required in order to submit a copy of your actual assignment through the form.) Contributors will be notified of final decisions in July and full essays will be due September 5.

Visit the Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom site for examples of previous assignments.

Questions about this CFA and the Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom initiative should be directed to Sophia Hsu ([email protected]) and Jude Fogarty ([email protected]).

To be placed on the UVC mailing list, kindly fill out this Google form.