Victorian Expansions: Cross-Cultural Migrations
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Friday 24 April 2026, 10.00AM to 7:30 PM
Speaker(s): Professor Ankhi Mukherjee, Professor of English and World Literatures, University of Oxford
The Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, in collaboration with the Centre for Modern Studies and the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies at York, is pleased to announce the return of its Victorian Studies conference, on the topic of “Victorian Expansions: Cross-Cultural Migrations.”
The Victorian age witnessed the mass movement of peoples and ideas, from empire-builders and settlers migrating to colonial peripheries, to artists, writers, and thinkers from around the world moving to the imperial metropole to create eclectic literary, artistic, and musical forms and genres that combined global influences. In a contemporary climate increasingly characterised by anti-immigration rhetoric and policy, “Victorian Expansions: Cross-Cultural Migrations” will gather interdisciplinary research by postgraduate students and senior scholars to uncover the inherent diversity and dynamism underlying Victorian, and indeed British, culture and identity.
The conference aims to promote the view of the long nineteenth century as characterised by the mobility and convergence of peoples, ideas, and artistic forms, thus offering a historical counternarrative to the isolationism and anti-immigration sentiments that increasingly shape our current moment.
Registration closed at 9:00am on Wednesday 15 April.
Updated schedule of events:
Venue: Hendrix Hall (D/L/028), Derwent College, Block L, Heslington Campus West, University of York
Victorian Expansions: Cross-Cultural Migrations Conference 2026
Friday, 24 April 2026
10-10:25 am: Registration & Coffee
Venue: D/L/049 Seminar Room (Derwent College, Block L), Heslington Campus West, University of York
10:25 am – 10:30 am: Welcome
Venue: Hendrix Hall (D/L/028), Derwent College, Block L
10:30 - 12 noon
Panel 1: Colonial (Self-)Constructions
Chair: Dr. Pritika Pradhan (University of York)
Speakers:
Fariha Shaikh (University of Birmingham): “Reading Across Boundaries: T. N. Mukharji’s Travelogue and Short Stories”
Abdul Sabur Kidwai (King’s College London): “Drawing the Line: Indian Muslim Self-fashioning in Victorian London”
Tarini Bhamburkar (University of Bristol): “Feminist Cross-currents: Interview with an Indian Woman in a British Women’s Periodical”
12 noon - 12:15 pm: Coffee Break (D/L/049)
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
A Creative Reading and Q&A with Professor Emily Zobel Marshall (Professor in Postcolonial Literature at Leeds Beckett University and author of poetry collections, Bath of Herbs (2023) and Other Wild (2025).
1:15 pm - 2:15 pm: Lunch (Derwent Dining Hall)
2:15-3:45 pm
Panel 2: Conflict at Home and in the World
Chair: Professor John Bowen (University of York)
Speakers:
Danielle Nielsen (Murray State University): “Traumatic Rhetoric: Women’s Ethos in the Survival Narratives of the 1857 Uprising”
Jessica Valdez (Louisiana State University): “The Intimacy of Global War: Migrating Plots and Sensational Trade in Wilkie Collins’s No Name”
Ruth-Anne Walbank (Warwick University): “Hellish Migrations: Cross-Cultural Exchanges in the Poetry of the Cotton Famine (1861-1865)”
3:45 pm – 4:00 pm: Coffee Break (D/L/049)
4:00 - 5:10 pm
Panel 3: Cross-Cultural Currents
Chair: Professor Matthew Campbell (University of York)
Speakers:
Samantha Lukic-Scott (University of York): “Cross-Cultural Spheres of Art and Manufacture: Britain and German States in the Victorian Era”
Charlotte Wilson (University of Oxford): “The Migration of Healthcare from the Home to the Professional: Home Healthcare in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine (1769) and Thomas John Graham’s Modern Domestic Medicine (1827)”
6 pm - 7:30 pm
Keynote (public lecture)
Title: “‘This strange Dream upon the water’: Charles Dickens Drowning in Venice”
Speaker: Professor Ankhi Mukherjee (Professor of English and World Literatures, University of Oxford)
Venue: Physics Lecture Theatre (P/L/002), Exhibition Centre – Physics and Electronic Engineering Building, Ground Floor, Heslington Campus West, University of York
Victorian Expansions: Cross-Cultural Migrations Final Programme (PDF 
, 8,794kb)
Note about venues:
The conference’s day events (panels and creative reading) are in Hendrix Hall
(Location: D/L/028, Derwent College, L Block - Ground Floor. Entrance is via the main corridor that runs through Derwent College). [Google Maps Link]
Registration and coffee breaks are in D/L/049 Seminar Room (down the same main corridor as Hendrix Hall, towards the English reception).
The evening keynote/public lecture is in the Physics Lecture Theatre (P/L/002), Exhibition Centre – Physics and Electronic Engineering Building (ground floor). [Google Maps Link]
How to get there:
All venues are in Heslington West Campus, located along University Road. Transport options include:
Train: There is a fast train service to York on the East Coast Main Line from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh. There are regular services running from York to Leeds.
Bus: There are regular bus services (including First Bus U1 and U2) from the Train Station to Heslington West Campus.
Guide to public transport
Public transport page
Parking: If you are coming by car, the closest parking lot is at Campus Central Car Park. Parking is pay to display. Parking lot maps
Venue details
Wheelchair accessible
Hearing loop
Image: The Last of England, Ford Madox Brown, 1855
Location: D/L/028, Hendrix Hall, Derwent College, Campus West, University of York
Admission: Ticketed
Email: pritika.pradhan@york.ac.uk