STW Society Conference, 29-30th May 2026
Venue: IAS Common Ground, University College London
“She, Laura Willowes, in England, in the year 1922, had entered into a compact with the Devil. The compact was made, and affirmed, and sealed with the round red seal of her blood”.
Having been scratched by a black kitten—shortly to become her familiar, Vinegar—Laura finds herself suddenly inducted into her new life: her newfound ‘vocation’ as a witch. The scene marks a similar moment of transformation in the novel to which she belongs, a pivot from naturalism to the supernatural that reroutes its social comedy through the fresh terms of the weird and the eerie. For Laura as for Sylvia Townsend Warner, and for a number of her later protagonists, the persistence of magic in the world serves as a clue for upsetting the established order of things.
Organised by the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society to mark the centenary of Lolly Willowes; or, The Loving Huntsman (1926), this conference will take Warner’s first novel as an opportunity to explore further the place of religion and the supernatural in her work. In this call for papers, we invite 250-word abstracts for 20-minute contributions that will address the representation of the supernatural in Lolly Willowes and/or Warner’s other fiction, or will consider the complex treatments of religion —in both fiction and non-fiction—present throughout her work. We also welcome comparative presentations that approach Warner’s depiction of religion or the supernatural in dialogue with other authors, be they Warner’s contemporaries or predecessors, or figures subsequently inspired by her work.
Please direct all inquiries (under the subject heading: ‘UCL Warner Conference’) to Peter Swaab at p.swaab@ucl.ac.uk, copying in Janet Montefiore at J.E.Montefiore@kent.ac.uk, and William Burns at william.burns.15@ucl.ac.uk.
Please send submissions to Kate Macdonald at kmacdonald@brookes.ac.uk by 30th September 2025.