Postgraduate Discussion Group

SPECS (Southampton Postgraduate Eighteenth-Century Society) is the new name for the Eighteenth-Century Postgraduate Discussion Group. Founded in 2009, we are a group of postgraduates who regularly meet to discuss stimulating aspects of the long eighteenth century in relaxed and friendly forum.

Sessions are interdisciplinary and provide an opportunity for members to present their research on any aspect of the eighteenth century. Each meeting promotes lively discussion and the exchange of ideas, contributing to a vibrant postgraduate network in the field of eighteenth-century studies.  Sessions are two-hours duration; one hour dedicated to the speaker/s and feedback, the other for informal discussion (usually over lunch, which we provide).

We welcome new members - please contact jcb2g08@soton.ac.uk for further information.

SPECS 2013 Meeting Schedule:

14th May 2013 12-2pm room 2161

Janet Carter: ‘Discovering the Secrets of the Chawton House Library Manuscript Miscellany'
Karen Tan: ‘Samuel Johnson and the Young Reader in the Eighteenth Century'
 
If anyone would like to present a paper and has not yet signed up, please contact jcb2g08@soton.ac.uk.
 
Other useful announcements and links are available on the SPECS group site, which is available through SUSSED. Our apologies to non-current students who cannot access this facility, but feel free to bring along any information you would like to be circulated to SPECS meetings instead.
 
Previous sessions have included topics such as:

• Approaches to interdisciplinary research
• Aggression and military masculinity
• Theories of eighteenth-century identity
• The picturesque in late eighteenth-century music
• Early eighteenth-century illustration
• The eighteenth-century credit crunch
• Tobias Smollett and Don Quixote
• Emotion in the novels of Frances Burney
• Exoticism in Eliza Haywood's early work