The Brontë Society has announced on its website the subject of the 2016 conference.

The Brontë Society is pleased to announce that the 2016 conference will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 19 – 21 August 2016 at the Midland Hotel in Manchester.   In 1837 Charlotte Brontë wrote to the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, for advice on a literary career. He replied that ‘literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life: & it ought not to be’. Our conference in 2016, the first of the three Brontë bicentenaries, takes up the challenge of what might be the ‘proper business of a woman’s life’. The many facets of this subject present a wide range of possible papers both academic and literary, including:

Women’s position in English culture and society in the nineteenth century
Contemporary writing on ‘The Woman Question’
Charlotte Brontë’s own writings on the matter
Her relationship with other women writers
Her literary reputation
Her influence on later feminist movements.
The Keynote Speaker will be Jenny Uglow, OBE.

 The conference weekend will include an optional excursion to The Gaskell House, the home of Charlotte’s friend and biographer, Elizabeth Gaskell, which has recently been opened to the public.
Abstracts for papers (no more than 300 words) should be sent by 28 February, 2016, to:
The Conference Organiser, The Brontë Society
The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Keighley BD22 8DR
Successful speakers will be notified by 31 March, 2016.

A tumultuous year for the Brontë Parsonage Museum

Bad news from the Brontë Parsonage Museum as reported by The Yorkshire Post:
Managers at the Bronte Society are confident of boosting visitor admissions to the Parsonage Museum after new figures revealed they dipped to under 70,000 last year.
The year saw a seven per cent drop in admissions from 73,830 in 2013 to 69,503 during a tumultuous 12 months which saw the departure of several key people including director Ann Sumner.
However, the Society claimed the drop in visitors was caused by the late reopening of the Museum following the relocation of the admissions area. Russell Watson, honorary treasurer of the Society, who has written to members ahead of the annual meeting on June 6, said: “The operating income of the Society is heavily dependent on the number of visitors to the Parsonage Museum. In 2014 the Museum did not reopen until the third week in February due to the reconfiguration of the admissions area. “Visitor admissions started slowly after this late opening, although they picked up later in the year.” [...] Finance manager, Clare Dewhirst, is expecting visitors to increase as important bicentenaries approach. She said: “Although the 2014 accounts show a small decline in visitor numbers, this is largely attributable to the fact that we opened later than usual in 2014 due to the improvement and relocation of the admissions area. “Our general admissions income for the year exceeded budget, which was due in part to the increase in visitor participation in the Government Gift Aid scheme. “We look forward to welcoming more visitors to the Museum in the coming months and years ahead as we prepare for the bicentenaries of each of the Bronte siblings.” (Andrew Robinson)
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