Victorian Network is an open-access, MLA-indexed, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing and promoting the best postgraduate and early career work across the broad field of Victorian Studies. The tenth issue of Victorian Network (Summer 2015) will be guest edited by Professor William A. Cohen (University of Maryland) on the theme of Victorian Dirt. Dirt – its causes, consequences, and control…
The finishing line of my DPhil is apparently in sight. I’ve rewritten and deleted this paragraph a lot, obviously, but the gist is that I have to send my Faculty a schedule for completion, and my supervisors got quite excited. There is now a schedule. My mouth is quite dry. Meanwhile, I am obviously researching…
In this clip, performers from the BBC Horrible Histories show debunk the myth behind one of my favourite carols. You can also see them do something similar for the medieval wassail.
Call for Papers: Sex, Courtship and Marriage in Victorian Literature and Culture Victorian Network is an MLA-indexed (from 2012) online journal dedicated to publishing and promoting the best postgraduate work in Victorian Studies. The sixth issue of Victorian Network, guest edited by Dr Greta Depledge (Royal Holloway), is dedicated to a reassessment of nineteenth-century constructions…
Competing (and interestingly conflicting) histories of the English language. The first is by the British Council, produced in 1943, with according anti-German propaganda, emphasis on John of Gaunt’s Richard II “sceptred isle” speech, and a cameo by Churchill. The second collates the 10 shorter videos produced by the Open University, narrated by satirist and Private…
Read more The History of the English Language: (1943) and (2011)
The first Columbia Road market was conceived in 1869 as an attempt to wean costermongers from the streets. Today, the Sunday morning flower market in Columbia Road and nearby Ezra Street has become something of an institution. Selling cut flowers, pot plants, herbs, trees and even mature shrubs, the market spills out into back streets…
Last night I went with (actual Historian) Andy to hear our friend Elizabeth give her first DPhil paper to Oxford’s Medieval Church and Culture Seminar. Tagging along to support Elizabeth, I was delighted to find her research subject both interesting and accessible (in other words, it had been pre-translated from the Latin). Fasiculus Morum is…
Read more Fasiculus Morum: A Fourteenth-Century Preacher’s Handbook
