I’m a member of SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing. Basically a bunch of book historians. They hold an annual conference each year, and I’ve been to two in the past: Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2005, and Dublin, Ireland, in 2012. Next year’s conference is in Antwerp in Belgium, which is terribly exciting from a print history viewpoint, being such an important early centre for printing, as well as a fun tourist destination.
I hope to be there. It depends on how I’m doing health-wise at the time. I’m long-term ill, with an MS-like illness, and my condition fluctuates quite a lot. But I’ve booked flights – cheap at the moment – and have sorted out a wheelchair-accessible hotel. I wouldn’t be using my wheelchair all the time there – Antwerp is a very cobbly old city – but would want it some of the time, and especially when at the conference talks.
A few months ago a fellow SHARP member on Twitter was toying with the idea of proposing a Doctor Who panel. In the end she decided she probably couldn’t make the trip over to Antwerp from America, but it raised ideas in my mind, that have been rumbling away ever since. And I think I might be going to propose a paper. The conference theme is religion, but also covers cult books and related publishing, and that’s a way in for Doctor Who, perhaps the most cult-ish TV programme ever, with rather an interesting relationship with publishing history.
My topic would be Doctor Who fanzines and their relationship to the programme, on air, then off air, then on air again. It also ties into the print versus digital debate. And fanzines are an interesting form of ephemeral publication that usually fall through the cracks. I have so many ideas for things I could talk about in a 20 minute talk. Back in July when I first had the idea I brainstormed ideas on my iPod touch, in an audio recording, so have that to refer to too.
On the downside this is well outside my specialist area 🙂 I’m a book historian, but my PhD, which looked at reading habits in Scotland, focused on the 18th and early 19th centuries. My postgraduate Masters dissertation was even earlier, looking at local court records from the 17th century. I’ve never looked formally at the 20th century or 21st century. But I think I could do this well, if only I can familiarise myself enough in time with the relevant secondary writings.
The SHARP 2014 Call for Papers closes on 30th November 2013. That gives me time to think over my options and do the necessary reading. Obviously if I do submit a paper proposal it would then be a question of whether the conference organisers accept it. But I’ll do my best, if I do decide to go ahead with a proposal. Another goal for Academic Writing Month!
If my SHARP paper is accepted I’d also turn up to my talk with a lot of fanzines to pass around the audience to let them see what I was talking about.
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