Lara Rutherford-Morrison has a PhD in Victorian literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently an Affiliated Scholar at Concordia University in Montreal and blogs daily for Bustle. Her research considers the ways that contemporary culture reimagines and plays with Victorian literature and history, in contexts ranging from adaptations of Victorian novels in film and fiction to heritage tourism in the U.K. She can be found at her website and on Twitter @LaraRMorrison. [youtube]https://youtu.be/oquZifON8Eg[/youtube] There’s a lot
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Ruth Slatter, Odd Victorian Objects 3: Brent Museum, ‘The Library’, Willesden Green
Willesden Green Library was initially opened in 1894 following a poll of the local ratepayers. The library itself could therefore be the subject of this third instalment of ‘Odd’ Victorian Objects in Victorian Britain. However, this post is not going to focus on this building’s heritage, but a new addition to its recent re-development: The Brent Museum. Located on the third floor of the new library in Willesden Green, the museum provides an overview of the history of the borough
Read moreLauren Padgett, ‘A Fatal Mistake’: The Bradford Lozenge Poisoning, 1858
As children this Halloween fill their plastic pumpkins and goody bags full of sweets, they should be thankful that although today sweets are bad your health, they are no longer deadly like they were around Halloween in Bradford, 1858. The first two deaths, two boys aged nine and eleven, had been reported on the morning on Sunday 31st of October, 1858. Other deaths followed, along with hundreds of people suffering from a ‘sudden and violent illness’. The only thing connecting
Read moreLara Rutherford-Morrison, Dracula as Prince Consort? Lord Ruthven as PM? The Vampiric Alternate History of Kim Newman’s ‘Anno Dracula’
Lara Rutherford-Morrison has a PhD in Victorian literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently an Affiliated Scholar at Concordia University in Montreal and blogs daily for Bustle. Her research considers the ways that contemporary culture reimagines and plays with Victorian literature and history, in contexts ranging from adaptations of Victorian novels in film and fiction to heritage tourism in the U.K. She can be found at her website and on Twitter @LaraRMorrison. With Halloween just around
Read moreJessica Cox, The Nineteenth-Century Motherhood Trap: Working Mothers in the Victorian Literary Marketplace
Jessica Cox, Brunel University. Jessica Cox read Wuthering Heights at the age of sixteen, resulting in a developing obsession with all things Victorian. This eventually led to her completing a PhD (on sensation writer Wilkie Collins) at Swansea University in 2007. She is currently a lecturer in English at Brunel University, London. Jessica has research interests in Victorian popular fiction (particularly sensation fiction), the Brontёs, first-wave feminism, and neo-Victorianism. She is the author of a short biography of Charlotte Brontё,
Read moreJames Cutler, The Cultural Afterlives of Our Mutual Friend: ‘Adapting Our Mutual Friend for TV and Radio’ Panel Report
James John Cutler, Royal Holloway James Cutler is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London, having previously studied at Aberystwyth, Liverpool and Cambridge. His thesis examines how and why certain places dominate the cultural memory of the most enduringly popular Victorian novelists. It investigates the crucial link between Victorian literary longevity and a cultural heritage characterised by strong associations with particular places. In addition to doctoral work, James volunteers at the Charles Dickens Museum and plays cricket for
Read moreSteven Harkins, Boris Johnson and the Victorian elite: Why Inequality is always fair at the top
Steven Harkins (University of Sheffield) Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, was recently criticised for his remarks on the importance of IQ tests and their relevance to equality. Delivering the annual Margaret Thatcher lecture, Johnson said ‘It is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16% of our species have an IQ below 85 and 2% have an IQ above 130’. The Mayor of London’s remarks resurrected a discourse about poverty and inequality that was developed by the intellectuals of Victorian Britain.
Read moreLaura Fox Gill, Review: The Hardy Way: A 19th-Century Pilgrimage, Margaret Marande
Laura Fox Gill, University of Sussex Laura Fox Gill is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Sussex. Her research investigates the influence of John Milton on nineteenth-century culture (painting, poetry, and prose) and she is soon to begin work on connections between the thought and writing of Milton and Thomas Hardy. She tweets at @kitsunetsukiki. Walking for Thomas Hardy was a complicated matter; never simply a way of getting from A to B . Though his novels
Read moreCFP The Body and Pseudoscience in the Long Nineteenth Century, Interdisciplinary Conference, 18 June 2016, Newcastle University
Call for Papers: The Body and Pseudoscience in the Long Nineteenth Century, Interdisciplinary Conference, 18 June 2016, Newcastle University ‘Sciences we now retrospectively regard as heterodox or marginal cannot be considered unambiguously to have held that status at a time when no clear orthodoxy existed that could confer that status upon them’ (Alison Winter, 1997). The nineteenth century witnessed the drive to consolidate discrete scientific disciplines, many of which were concerned with the body. Attempts were made to clarify the
Read moreDrew Gray, Returning to Ripper Street (Part One): A Historian’s Perspective
Drew Gray, University of Northampton. Drew Gray teaches at the University of Northampton. He’s a social historian who specializes in the history of crime. You can follow his Twitter updates @HistoryatNmpton. The third series of Ripper Street had a delayed passage to terrestrial TV. Apparently axed by the BBC after series two’s dramatic finale it finally resurfaced on Amazon Prime after a vociferous campaign by the show’s many fans. I will admit to being one of those who struggled to
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