ANZSECS supports the David Nichol Smith Seminar. First held in 1966, the seminar offers an interdisciplinary forum for research into any aspect of the long eighteenth century. The seminar has been hosted by institutions in Australia and New Zealand, and is the only event of its kind in Australasia.

Next Seminar

• The next DNS is expected to take place in 2025. The host institution will be announced soon.

About David Nichol Smith

David Nichol Smith (1875-1962) was one of the foremost literary scholars of the twentieth century. Scottish-born, he was educated in Edinburgh and Paris, and from 1908 was Goldsmiths’ Reader in English at Oxford. From 1929 to his retirement in 1946 he was the Merton Professor of English Literature. Among his many publications were a number of important editions, including the Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse (1926) and his edition with E.L. McAdam of the Poems of Samuel Johnson (1941). An influential teacher, he travelled a great deal in his retirement, and it was as a result of time spent in Adelaide and New Zealand that it was decided that his working library, of some 8,000 volumes and 1,500 pamphlets (about half of which were printed before 1800), should pass after his death to the National Library of Australia. The first David Nichol Smith Memorial Seminar was held as a public celebration of the arrival of this collection in Canberra, the conference has been held approximately every three years since.

Past Seminars – Including Publications

DNS XVIII, Melbourne, 7 – 9 December 2022

• The Australian Catholic University
• Theme: Maritime Worlds of the Long Eighteenth Century

DNS XVII, Adelaide, 13 November – 11 December 2020

• The University of Adelaide and Flinders University, South Australia
• Theme: ‘Dark Enlightenments’
• Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this was the first fully-online Seminar.
• A special edition of Eighteenth-Century Life is being developed.

DNS XVI, December 2017

• University of Queensland and Griffith University, South Bank campus.
• Theme: ‘Nature and Spaces of Enlightenment’
• Spaces of Enlightenment, ed. Peter Denney and Lisa O’Connell. Eighteenth-Century Life, 45:3. This special edition includes 9 papers from DNS XVI plus Kate Fullagar’s keynote from DNS XVII
• Two additional papers from DNS XVI – one by Spenser Jackson and one by Lisa O’Connell – appear in a special 18th-century issue of Postcolonial Studies 23:3, available here.
• Natures of Enlightenment: Cultures of Environment in the British World, 1700-1840 (forthcoming in 2022).

DNS XV, December 2014

• The University of Sydney.
• Theme: ‘Ideas and Enlightenment’
• Ideas and Enlightenment in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Jennifer Milam and Nicola Parsons. Eighteenth-Century Life, 41:2 (April 2017).
  

DNS XIV, July 2011

• La Trobe University, Melbourne

DNS XIII, April 2007

• The University of Otago, Dunedin
• Rewriting the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Shef Rogers and Jocelyn Harris. Eighteenth-Century Life, 32:2 (Spring, 2008).

DNS XII, July 2004

• The National Library of Australia and the Australian National University, Canberra

DNS XI, March 2001

• The National Library of Australia, Canberra
• Exoticism and the Culture of Exploration, ed. Christa Knellwolf, Iain McCalman. Eighteenth-Century Life, 26:3 (Fall, 2002)

DNS X, July 1996

• The National Library of Australia, Canberra
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century 10: Margins and Metropolis: Literature, Culture, and Science, 1660-1830, ed. Ian Higgins, Gillian Russell. Eighteenth-Century Life, 22:1 (Feb. 1998)

DNS IX, August 1993

• The University of Auckland
• The South Pacific in the Eighteenth Century: Narratives and Myths, ed. Jonathan Lamb. Eighteenth-Century Life, 18:3 (Nov., 1994)

DNS VIII, 1990

• Monash University, Melbourne
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century 8: Social Reform and Cultural Discourses in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Clive T. Probyn. Eighteenth-Century Life, 16:1 (Feb. 1992)

DNS VII, 1986

• The University of Otago, Dunedin
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century 7, ed. Jocelyn Harris. Eighteenth-Century Life, 12:2 (May, 1988)

DNS VI, 1983

• The University of Melbourne
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century 6, ed. Colin Duckworth and Homer Le Grand. Eighteenth-Century Life, 11:1 (Feb., 1987)

DNS V, August 1980.

• The Australasian and Pacific Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the National Library of Australia, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University: Canberra
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century 5, ed. J.P. Hardy and J.C. Eade. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, Taylor Institution, 1983.

DNS IV, August 1976.

• The Australasian and Pacific Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the National Library of Australia, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University: Canberra
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century IV, ed. R.F. Brissenden and J.C Eade. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979.

DNS III, August 1973.

• The Australasian and Pacific Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the National Library of Australia, The Australian National University, the Australian Academy of the Humanities: Canberra
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century III, ed. R.F. Brissenden and J.C Eade. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1976.

DNS II, August 1970

• The National Library of Australia, The Australian National University, the Australian Academy of the Humanities: Canberra
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century II, ed. R.F. Brissenden. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973.

DNS I, August 1966.

• The Australian National University, Canberra
• Studies in the Eighteenth Century, ed. R.F. Brissenden. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1968.