Sophie Cooper, The Rush for Gold – A Global Quest

Sophie Cooper is a second year PhD student and William McFarlane Scholar at the University of Edinburgh. She is studying Irish communities in Melbourne and Chicago between 1850 and 1890, specifically in relation to situational influences on identity formation and nationalist thought. Sophie tweets using the handle @SophcoCooper and more information can be found on her academia page.  When you think of the poor migrants who left the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century, it is usual to think of

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“As far away from England as any man could be”: The Luminaries as sensation sequel?

By Kirby-Jane Hallum Kirby-Jane Hallum teaches English Literature at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Her research interests lie in the long 19th century in Britain and New Zealand, with particular focus on women’s and popular literature. Kirby-Jane’s monograph, Aestheticism and the Marriage Market in Victorian Popular Fiction: The Art of Female Beauty, is forthcoming from Pickering & Chatto in 2015, and she is currently embarking on a new project regarding Britain’s influence on colonial New Woman writing. Follow

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