Serena Trowbridge, Birmingham City University In March I had the opportunity to participate in a symposium at the British Psychological Society’s History and Philosophy of Psychology (HPP) Conference at the University of Surrey. This session was convened by Gregory Tate (Surrey), and included four papers: ‘Definitions of sanity and insanity in sensation novels by Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’ by Helena Ifill (Sheffield), ‘Diagnosis and mental trauma in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette’ by Alexandra Lewis (Aberdeen), ‘The self-diagnosis of Sydney
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Tweeting It Up @ #bavs2012
By Jo Taylor It is the first evening at BAVS 2012 (@VictorianValues). Delegates lounge around the bar at The Edge, our venue at Sheffield University, discussing such critical matters of Victorianist interest as William Morris’s relationship to bubble-wrap, the various ‘funny Victorians’ Tumblr pages, and the benefits of ice cream provision. In a dark corner, a table is surrounded by silent academics, lit only be an eerie glow from beneath. The sparse light falls on fast-moving fingers and slightly glazed
Read moreConference Report: Transforming Objects, 28-29 May 2012, Northumbria University
Nicole Bush (Northumbria) This two-day conference hosted papers that addressed the transformation of objects and the transformations effected by objects from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Object theory and discourses of materiality largely engage with objects as stable items of a permanent nature; as the conference co-organiser, I was keen to attract papers which sought to address those moments which slip through the gaps of such readings and explore the process of transformation and the between-ness or not fully
Read moreConference Report: W. T. Stead: Centenary Conference for a Newspaper Revolutionary
Paul Horn, University of Birmingham On 16 and 17 April 2012, early career researchers, established academics, media and law professionals met at the British Library to exchange their perspectives on the life and work of the pioneering journalist and editor, W. T. Stead. With Stead’s discursive career as a focal point, multiple routes were developed into knowledge of his time and ours. Day One The conference was opened with a keynote from Laurel Brake (Birkbeck), whose paper ‘W. T. Stead
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