Call for Papers

“Monarch of All I Survey:” Literary Posterity and Cultural Legacies

International conference – ENS de Lyon, Nov. 20-21, 2025. 

We invite submissions for an international conference exploring the literary posterity of the phrase “I am monarch of all I survey” from William Cowper’s 1782 poem. Cowper’s lines have echoed through centuries of literature and criticism, embodying themes of imperial control, sight, and isolation, while remaining notably ambiguous. How has this ambivalence been reinterpreted across different cultural contexts and literary genres, from British Romanticism to contemporary postcolonial discourse? This conference seeks to engage with the far-reaching impact of Cowper’s words across a wide array of literary and theoretical frameworks.

Keynote speakers: Julia Kühn (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) and Nicholas Spengler (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain).

Full CFP here: https://monarch2025.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/1

Submission deadline: April 15, 2025.

 

Organizing committee:

Amanda Benmouloud (ENS de Lyon, IHRIM)

Vanessa Guignery (ENS de Lyon, IHRIM)

Julien Nègre (ENS de Lyon, IUF, IHRIM)

Emmanuelle Peraldo (Université Côte d’Azur, CTELA)

Marion Perrin (ENS de Lyon, IHRIM)

Anne-Élise Pinzaru (ENS de Lyon, IHRIM)

Adrien Spiga (Université Côte d’Azur, CTELA)