Death and Disease Behind the Counter 30 November 2018 This term, the Diseases of Modern Life team showcased their research at two major public engagement events – our Victorian Speed Late at the Museum of the History of Science and Victorian Light Night with The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.
Oh what a - Victorian Light - Night! 16 November 2018 On Friday 16th November Woodstock Road was a hive of activity for "Victorian Light Night", part of both the national Being Human Festival and Oxford’s own Christmas Light Festival.
All about those ballads (ft. Oskar Cox Jensen) 2 November 2018 Dr. Oskar Cox Jensen is an Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the History Department at QMUL, an expert in British song of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a novelist, and he is also a singer of ballads!
On the Subject of Speed... Thomas Hardy 23 October 2018 Born in 1840 in rural Dorset but writing up until his death in 1928, English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy witnessed dramatic social, scientific and technological changes.
Sneak Preview of Victorian Speed! 11 October 2018 On the evening of Thursday 18th October, the Museum of the History of Science will be throwing open its doors for a special event – Victorian Speed: The Long History of Fast Living.
The Magic Mango 29 August 2018 Amelia Bonea’s story The Magic Mango, published by Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver, is now available in 7 languages on the StoryWeaver website https://storyweaver.org.in/stories/27150-the-magic-mango
'Sanitation on the Shop': Health and Retail Work in Late Victorian Britain 28 June 2018 In 1892, the Lancet launched an inquiry into the dangers of retail work.
Creative Health; or, what would Vernon Lee have to say to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing? 23 May 2018 It was Mental Health Awareness Week last week, and I’ve been looking back at the July 2017 Inquiry Report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (#ArtsHealthWellbeing).
Dracula and Modern Life 2 May 2018 Dr Emilie Taylor-Brown, Dr Hosanna Krienke, and Dr Sarah Green recently led a post-performance panel discussion for Creation Theatre’s production of Dracula, which was staged at Blackwell’s Bookshop.
The Contagion Cabaret at the Science Museum (London) 30 April 2018 Last night The Contagion Cabaret brought its infectious entertainment to audiences at the Science Museum’s ‘Superbugs’ Late.
A Home or a Gaol? Scandal, Secrecy, and the St James’s Inebriate Home for Women 24 April 2018 The advance Open Access copy of Jennifer Wallis’s article on late Victorian inebriate homes for women, is now available here.
‘Wholesale poisoning by hot cross-buns’ and bizarre murders of medical men 30 March 2018 As you bite into your delicious hot cross-bun this Easter, spare a thought for the inhabitants of Inverness in 1882, who were subjected to ‘whole-sale poisoning by hot cross-buns’, with over 140 worthy citizens and children affected.
Confusing Times: Communicating, 24/7 2 March 2018 In the age of smartphones, broadband internet access, and cheap(ish) air travel, the vision of the ‘global village’, appears to have become a reality.
Full video from Contagion Camerata 16 February 2018 This is the full video from our Contagion Camera event from 2 February, 2018. See more at Contagion Camerata
Contagion Cabaret, Meet our Student Composers video 23 January 2018 Interviews with local students who composed music around themes of contagion, medicine, and science.
Now What? Surviving Serious Illness in the Nineteenth-Century 8 January 2018 Writing in 1991, sociologist Arthur W. Frank declared that Western scientific medicine had created what he called “the remission society,” a growing number of patients whose lives were saved by medical treatment but who could not be considered cured.
The Proof is in the Pudding: A Bah! Humbug! Victorian Christmas 23 December 2017 ‘He is an utter and bombastic fraud. He rolls spluttering and crackling onto the English dinner-table at Yuletide, a sprig of English holly cocked jauntily in his cap, well nigh bursting his rotund body in swaggering sham patriotism.’
Christmas and the Victorian Medical Press 19 December 2017 The release of The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017) – a film which tells the story of how Charles Dickens penned A Christmas Carol in 1843 – has reignited the popular myth that the Victorians ‘created’ the festive season.
‘Fake News’: Insights from the NPHFI’s Tenth Annual Conference, Newcastle University, 10-11 November 2017 12 December 2017 The Tenth Annual Conference of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland, held at the University of Newcastle on November 10-11, 2017, addressed a topic that no doubt resonates with many contemporary discussions.
Telegraphy's Trials, Tribulations and Triumphs 20 October 2017 My research aims to uncover the lesser-known twists and turns in this narrative, to explore both the hopes and the frustrations, the anxieties as well as the excitement which were associated with telegraphy in nineteenth-century Europe.
Not Having Sex in the Victorian Period 18 October 2017 If you don’t have sex, you will be better at something else.
American Historical Association’s The Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize in the history of journalism awarded to Amelia Bonea 11 October 2017 Amelia Bonea, Postdoctoral Research Assistants, has won the American Historical Association’s The Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize in the history of journalism.