University of York and online

27th-28th June 2025

#Barbauld2025

About the conference

Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825) was a poet, educator and polemicist, celebrated after her death as ‘unquestionably the first of our female poets, and one of the most eloquent and powerful of our prose writers’. The year 2025 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of Barbauld’s death and the publication of a new four-volume scholarly edition of her Collected Works by Oxford University Press. We celebrate these landmarks with a two-day conference in-person at the King's Manor, University of York, and online.

Our speakers will investigate the importance of dissenting thought and feeling for Barbauld’s poetry and prose, and will explore the legacy of her work in much more recent voicings of religious and political dissent.

Keynote Speakers

Emma Clery, Professor of Literature, Uppsala University. Paper title: ‘Barbauld’s Poetics of Peace in an Age of War’

Scott Krawczyk, Associate Chief Academic Officer and Professor of English, University of the District of Columbia. Paper title: ‘Voicing Anti-War Dissent: Barbauld’s Legacies’

Elizabeth Kraft, Professor Emerita of English, University of Georgia. Paper title: ‘Protest and its Discontents: Anna Letitia Barbauld and Hannah More’

William McCarthy, Professor Emeritus of English, Iowa State University. Paper title: 'Recovering Barbauld: Archive and After-Image'

Tickets

There are a number of different tickets available for this conference:

In person tickets

In person general admission £45

In person concessions (unwaged) £25

In person University of York students £0

In person University of York staff £25

Online tickets

Online general admission £15

Online concessions (unwaged) £10

Online University of York students £0

Online University of York staff £10

Conference dinner tickets

We also have 20 tickets available for the conference dinner at an additional price of £35. You must purchase a ticket for the conference, as well as purchasing a ticket for the conference dinner, so please ensure to add both to your basket before checking out.