Call for Papers
Romanticism and Rocks
ECR Research workshop - 23 October 2026
University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
Keynote speaker: Sophie Laniel-Musitelli (Université de Lille)
Building on last year’s workshop on “Romanticism and Ice” at the Université Louis et Marie Pasteur, this workshop aims to examine representations of rock during the Romantic era and their legacy through aesthetic, ecocritical, and geological lenses. Rocks held considerable significance for European Romanticism, contributing to sentimental and Gothic culture, the development of landscape aesthetics and tourism, as well as historicism and a new understanding of revolution in natural history and politics. While rocks have long symbolized solidity and permanence, they have also been viewed since the Romantic period as fragile, even vital, objects.
We invite you to submit proposals for 20-minute papers that shed light on any aspect of the Romantic and rocks. Possible topics include but are not limited to:
- Romanticism and earth sciences (geology, geognosy)
- Romanticism and Jura / the Alps
- Rocks and Romantic travel literature
- Rocks and the Gothic
- Romanticism and mountaineering
- Comparative approaches to Romanticism and rocks (British, German, French, etc.)
- Ecocritical approaches to Romanticism and rocks
- Romanticism and/or rocks in New Materialisms, Object-Oriented Ontology
- Romantic-era lithic literature and the poetics of the petrous
- Romantic rocks in visual arts / intermedial approaches
- Romanticism and deep time
- Legacies of Romantic writing on rocks in Victorian and later literature.
Please send proposals of 250-300 words and a short biographical note of 100 words to the organizers by 13 June 2026:
Pauline Hortolland (pauline.hortolland@umlp.fr); Philip Lindholm (philip.lindholm@unil.ch); Patrick Vincent (patrick.vincent@unine.ch).
Applications from Early Career Researchers are particularly welcomed. The workshop aims to develop a network of scholars in the border regions of France, Switzerland, and Germany.
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