5-7 November 2025

 

Eighteenth-century global history is a history of seas and oceans. International trade and migration stretched across all continents. Britain’s colonial empire, and the trades on which it thrived – not least the Slave Trade – was driven by its domination of the world’s waterways. The port city of Liverpool was a major gateway for Britain’s contact with the wider world through maritime routes. This complemented the complex network of domestic waterways – rivers, canals – which played a significant part in Britain’s industrial revolution. Tourists from across the British Isles, meanwhile, enjoyed greater contact with other cultures and countries through improved transport networks, and a booming industry in travel literature. Land and sea make up Laurence Sterne’s world. From the journeys Tristram and Yorick undertake by crossing the Channel and travelling across the European continent, to Walter Shandy’s trading activities as a ‘Turky Merchant’, to references to warfare on both sea and land (the War of the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years’ War), Sterne’s works reflect the ‘terraqueous globe’.

 

We welcome 150-200-word proposals for 20-minute papers that engage with any aspect of the conference theme, in relation to Sterne or to other works and writers of the period. We also welcome proposals for panels or roundtables.

 

This conference marks a new publishing partnership between The Shandean and Liverpool University Press.

 

Find the Call for Papers as a PDF here.

New deadline for proposals: 15th September 2025 | Email proposals to: shandeanjournal@gmail.com

Professor Marcus Walsh, Emeritus, University of Liverpool

Professor Chloe Wigston Smith, University of York

For more information please visit: https://terraqueousglobe.wordpress.com/