This is a list of all the talks I have given, with links to papers, abstracts, programs and conference websites where available. This is still under construction, but I’m working my way back year by year.
Talks
2024
‘Almost human in its action’: Hot metal and the nineteenth-century press’, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals annual conference, University of Stirling, 13-15 June 2024.
I returned to hot metal in this paper. Whereas before I’d focused on the sound of hot metal composition and the ephemerality of type, here I looked more closely at the introduction of Linotype and how it recast the body of the compositor as part of the machine.
‘Ephemera Belongs to the Dead: Persistence and Passing in “Casting the Runes”’, ‘Sequestered Places, Heaving Seas: The Life and Works of M. R. James’, University of Suffolk, 30 April 2024.
In this paper I returned to something I argued in a shorter form about ephemera and M.R. James’s short story ‘Casting the Runes’. A fuller version of this appears in my current book manuscript as an introduction to a chapter on ephemera.
‘“To those who do not file”: Evolving material formats and the “newspaper now”’, Midwest Victorian Studies Association, University of Iowa, 19-21 April 2024.
In this paper I finally got to grips with something that I believed was true about how the newspaper press but didn’t really have a good sense of the evidence. I’ve argued a number of times that newspapers abandoned the archival future around mid century; in this paper I examined how this occurred in three different newspapers. You can see the abstract here.
2023
‘To “fructify in silence”: Newspapers and the archival future in Victorian Britain’, North American Victorian Studies Association, Indiana University, 9-11 November 2023.
This paper addressed the place of newspapers in the archive. Beginning with newspapers’ own attempts to conceive of their archival future I then turned to W.T. Stead’s rather odd account of the life of William Parker Snow. Stead’s spiritualism offered him some comfort, a perfect backstop preventing things from being lost, but in his account of Snow registers some doubts about trusting to ghostly archivists.
‘Who is benefited by telegrams?’: Information matters in the 1870s British periodical press, ESPRIT annual conference, Leeds Beckett University, 27-29 June 2023
I took advantage of the theme of the conference, periodicals and belonging, to return to the temporal landscape of the 1870s as I continued to work on my chapter. This time, I set my account of The Way We Live Now alongside the supposed death of Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth.
‘Telegraph Time: Literature, Information Technology, and the Temporal Landscape of 1870s Britain’, Paul Hague Lecture, University of St Thomas, St Paul, MN, 13 April 2023
It was a real privilege to be invited to give this lecture at the University of St Thomas. My talk situated a reading of Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now within a wider discussion of time and temporality in the 1870s. Some of the ideas from the lecture will feature in a chapter for a book about the 1870s due to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2023/2024.
2022
Capturing Ephemerality: Praxeological Modes of Fixing Journal Literature / Flüchtigkeit fixieren: praxeologische Modi journalliterarischen Festhaltens, Philips University Marburg, 24-26 August 2022
This talk derives from my new work on hot metal composition. Titled, ‘”Click, Click, Click”: Capturing the Time of Hot Metal Composition in the Late Nineteenth-Century Press’, the talk focused on the difference between the sorts in the case and the molten metal itself. My argument is that using hot metal underscores the provisionality of the printing surface while also disavowing the possibility of an alphabetical unconscious. I’ve posted the abstract here.
Midwest Victorian Studies Association, Richmond, Indiana, 6-8 May 2022.
The theme of this conference, ‘Sonorities and Stained Glass: Aestheticism, Sensation, and the Arts of Sensing in Victorian Britain’, gave me the chance to try out some new research. I’m interested in the introduction of hot metal typesetting in the late nineteenth century and wanted to know more about how it first struck people. My paper was ‘“Click, click, click”: The rhythms of hot metal composition in the late nineteenth-century press’,
2021
Nineteenth Century Research Seminar, University of Oxford, 15 November 2021.
I used this paper to reframe the introduction to my book, Whispers of Print. My paper was entitled ‘Dead Secrets: Collins, Content, and Cultural Techniques in Victorian Print Cuture’
RSVP annual conference, Temple University, Philadelphia, 8-11 September 2021 [online]
RSVP gave me a final opportunity to explore Dickens’s ‘Trading in Death’. My paper was ‘Trading in Death: Periodicals, Seriality, Ephemerality’
ESPRit annual conference, Bochum, 14 June 2021 [online]
At this conference I took the opportunity to write up and record my work on ‘Trading in Death’. I used the same title, ‘Trading in Death: Dickens, Ephemerality, and the mid-Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press’.
MVSA, 22 May 2021 [online]
I was privileged to be invited to take part in a roundtable in honour of Patrick Leary’s contributions to the field. My talk was ‘Attribution matters’ and you can read it here.
RSVP Digital Salon, 19 March 2021 [online]
I took part in an RSVP Digital Salon ‘Teaching Periodical Studies Online. My contribution was called ‘“Mechanical exigencies” and the enabling difference: looking again at the look of the page’. Further details, and a link to the recording, are here.
University of Buckingham, 4 March 2021 [online]
At this research seminar I took advantage of the time available to give an extended version of my talk, ‘Trading in Death: Dickens, Ephemerality, and the mid-Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press’.
Centre CHoP research seminar, 11 February 2021 [online]
It was great to be able to present my latest work on ephemerality at the Centre CHoP seminar alongside Emily Bell. My talk was ‘Trading in Death: Dickens, Ephemerality, and the mid-Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press’.
2020:
BSHS Global Digital History of Science Festival, 6-10 July 2020
This talk was part of a roundtable entitled ‘Connecting Beyond: Oliver Lodge as a Communicator of Science’ featuring Di Drummond and Richard Noakes and chaired by Graeme Gooday. My talk was ‘Oliver Lodge and celebrity: decoding the Mariemont visitor’s book’. Details are here.
Digital Arts and Humanities Series: Purdue University Fort Wayne, 3 March 2020
This presentation gave me the opportunity to reflect on the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition, both in terms of when we first created it 2005-2008 and the second edition in 2018 and think a bit more about the long history of indexing c19th newspapers and periodicals. My paper was ‘Editions, Indexes, and Utopianism: Bibliography, DH, and the Difficulties of Nineteenth-Century Print’
2019:
North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA), 17-19 October 2019
I was invited to take part in a panel, Victorian Archival Mediations, organised by Matthew Poland and featuring Ann Garascia and Anna Wager. My paper was ‘Ephemera belongs to the dead: affect, print, and memory’ and I’ve posted it on my blog here.
Reading Miscellanies/Miscellaneous Reading: Interrelations between Medial Formats, Novel Structures, and Reading Practices in the Nineteenth century, University of Cologne: 29-31 August 2019
This was a revised and expanded version of the paper I gave at RSVP. This material on miscellaneity will be part of chapter one of my book and is coming out as a journal article in Victorian Periodicals Review.
Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP), University of Brighton, 25-27 July 2019
This is the first of a number of papers I’m giving about miscellaneity in the nineteenth-century press. It’s called ‘”Confused and Ill-Arranged”: Reading Miscellaneity with Enquire Within‘.
Society for the History of Authorship, Readers, and Publishing (SHARP), 15-19 July 2019
This paper drew on research for chapter four of my book. My paper is ‘A Valley of Dry Bones Covered in Flesh: Print and the Formation of the Public Record Office and British Museum in Nineteenth-Century Britain.’
Dregs, Dross, and Debris: The Art of Transient Print, Liverpool John Moores University, 9-10 July 2019
This is the first paper I’m giving based on work for the sixth chapter of my monograph. It’s entitled ‘Ephemera belongs to the dead: affect, print, and memory’. The conference website is here and my abstract is on my blog here.
Science and Spiritualism, Leeds Trinity University, 30-31 May 201 9
At this conference I gave an abbreviated version of the Oxford paper also called ‘Binding and Embodiment: Oliver Lodge, Physics, and the Book.’
Science Medicine and Culture in the Nineteenth Century Seminar Series at the University of Oxford, 14 May 2019
My paper was entitled ‘Binding and Embodiment: Oliver Lodge, Physics, and the Book’ and was an adapted version of my chapter in the forthcoming collection, A Pioneer of Connection: Recovering the Life and Work of Oliver Lodge (University of Pittsburg Press, 2020). The abstract is on my blog here.
2018:
‘Miszellanität und Serialität in Journaltexturen’, University of Cologne, 22-23 November 2018
I was invited back to Cologne to take part in this two-day conference on miscellaneity and seriality. I gave a longer version of my work on Stead, focusing on the way Stead challenged seriality through supplementarity. My paper was ‘Issues, Extras, and Indexes: Archiving the Contemporary with W.T. Stead’.
Desubjugating Knowledges in Nineteenth-Century Print Culture, 13 October 2018
This was a talk written to celebrate the work of Professor Laurel Brake. Entitled ‘Issues, Extras, and Indexes: Revisiting the Archive with W.T. Stead’, it uses the various supplements published by the Pall Mall Gazette to examine archival time.
Books, Readers, and Reading: Celebrating 250 Years of the Leeds Library, 20-22 September 2018
I gave a revised version of the paper delivered in Victoria, focusing more closely on the British Museum and Public Record Office. It was called ‘To Lay Open the Nerves and Arteries of a Book: Bodies, Books and Libraries in the Nineteenth Century’. The conference website is here and the programme here
Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) and Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada (VSAWC), University of Victoria, BC, 26-28 July 2018
My paper was ‘To Lay Open the Nerves and Arteries of a Book: Bodily Metaphors and Archival Forms in the Nineteenth Century’, The Body and the Page in Victorian Culture, joint conference between RSVP and Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada (VSAWC), University of Victoria, 26-28 July 2018. This paper is drawn from work I’m doing towards chapter four of my current monograph. The proposal can be found on my blog here.
Sadler Seminar: The Spirit and the Letter: Radical Practices of Community, Language and Design, University of Leeds, 18 April 2018
My contribution to this series was ‘Stead: W.T. Stead: Print, Scandal, and Bibliographical Utopia’.
2017:
Northwest Print Culture Research Network, Liverpool John Moores University, 29 November 2017
I was thrilled to give the keynote at this year’s Northwest Print Research Network symposium. My talk was ‘The Scandalous W.T. Stead and the Provisional Everyday’.
RSVP Annual Conference, University of Freiburg, 27-29 July 2017
I was excited to be able to present alongside Nico Pethes and Marcus Krause, my colleagues from Cologne, where I spent a month or so in the summer. Our panel was ‘Periodicals, Classification, Codex’ and my paper ‘Night Work or Night Play? Periodicals, Archives, and Poole’s Index‘. Details about the conference are here.
Research Seminar, University of Cologne, 20 July 2017
As part of my fellowship in Cologne I was asked to give a research seminar. My title was ‘Between Sympathy and Information: On the Form of the Nineteenth-Century Printed Book’ and it drew on material I’d presented earlier in the year, as well as the latest drafts from my book.
Research Seminar, University of Bochum, 4 July 2017
I spent five weeks in Cologne on a fellowship as part of a project called ‘Journalliteratur: Formatbedingungen, visuelles Design, Rezeptionskulture’. My talk was ‘Bad Indexers are Everywhere’: Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, Indexes and Archival Dreaming’.
The Book Index, Oxford University, 22-23 June 2017
The title of this presentation is deceptively similar to the work I’m presenting at SHARP, but the paper was actually drawn from the other half of the Chicago work. It is called ‘”The indexes of some periodicals are good, but those of the many are bad”: Indexing Periodicals in the Nineteenth Century’. Details of the conference are here.
SHARP Annual Conference, University of Victoria, BC, 9-12 June 2017
I gave a talk based on research carried out in Chicago called ‘”The indexes of some periodicals are good, but those of the many are bad”: periodicals, bad indexes and the technology of the book in the nineteenth century’. Details of the conference are here.
George Eliot and Her Circle, Anglia Ruskin University, 26 May 2017
While I would not claim to be an Eliot specialist, I’ve always been deeply interested in her life and writing. My lecture builds on the work I presented in Leicester, focusing on Daniel Deronda. Details about the conference are here.
Loyola University Victorian Society, 19 April 2017
I gave a lecture to the Loyola University Victorian Society during my stay in Chicago. It was a revised version of the talk I gave in Leicester and another opportunity to think through this material before the keynote in May. Details here.
Textual Scholarship Seminar, Loyola University, 29 March 2017
I was invited to give a talk in Paul Eggert’s doctoral class on Textual Scholarship. It was book history week so my paper was called ‘Books, History, and the History of Books’. Details here/
Victorian Studies Centre Seminar, University of Leicester, 22 March 2017
Having been the external examiner for the Centre’s excellent MA in Victorian Studies for a number of years, it was great to present some work in the research seminar. My paper was ‘Between Sympathy and Information: The Novel and the Book in the Nineteenth Century’. Full details about the seminar are here.
Victorian Research Seminar, University of Leeds, 15 February
We run this seminar in collaboration with the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies at Leeds Trinity. My talk was ‘”The indexes of some periodicals are good, but those of the many are bad”: periodicals, bad indexes and the technology of the book’ and gave me a chance to revise the work I’d done for the Wolff Lecture ahead of some further talks later in the year. I was particularly pleased to be presenting alongsie Stephan Pigeon from McGill University. Full details of the event, and the rest of the Spring / Summer progamme, are here (pdf).
Spirits in the Ether: Oliver Lodge and Physics of the Spirit World, Royal Institution, 1 February.
I spoke as part of a panel chaired by Samira Ahmed and also featuring Christine Ferguson and David Hendy. My talk was ‘Pondering the Imponderables with Oliver Lodge’. Samira and I spoke a little about Lodge on BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science: you can listen to the discussion here.
2016:
Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, University of Missouri, Kansas City, 9-10 September 2016
I was very honoured to give the Wolff Lecture at the 2016 RSVP annual conference and was particularly thrilled to do so in the Linda Hall Library. The lecture was entitled ‘Too Much to Read: Victorian Periodicals, Bibliographical Utopianism, and the Bad Indexer’ and you can watch it here. The conference site is here and details will also be archived on the RSVP site.
Victorian Periodicals Through Glass: Reflections on the Theory and Practice of Digitizing 19th-Century Newspapers and Magazines, Athenaeum Club, 15 July 2016
As mentioned above, I’m revising my Mugby Junction material over the year. This version was the final draft, incorporating what I learned from the workshop in Cologne.
Cologne Media Lectures, ‘Media Practices of Literature: Writings, Textual Objects and Computer Philology’, University of Cologne, 12 July 2016
This lecture used Oliver Lodge to further explore materiality, both in print and digital. Entitled ‘Print Presence in the Electrical Age: Oliver Lodge, Media, and Materiality’, it situated some of the material from my Newcastle lecture in the context of recent German media theory. You can watch the lecture here. While in Cologne I also ran a workshop on Mugby Junction.
The Body and Pseudoscience in the Long Nineteenth Century, Newcastle University, 18 June 2015
This conference was organized by members of the English Department at Newcastle and was supported by the BSLS and BAVS. I gave the keynote, ‘Print Presence in the Electrical Age: Oliver Lodge and the Pseudoscience of Media and Mediation’. The website is here.
English Department Lecture Series, Hong Kong University, 31 May 2016
In this seminar series, I gave another version of my work on chlorodyne: ”Telling Tales about Chlorodyne: Nineteenth-Century Print Culture and the Secret Character of Things’.
Forgotten Books and Cultural Memory, Taipei, 27-28 May 2016
This conference was organized by the English Department at Taipei Tech and supported by SHARP. I gave one of the keynotes, ‘It Begins with the Printer: Memory, Books and the Library’. The conference site is here.
Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, Lincoln, Nebraska, 13-16 April 2016.
This year’s NCSA was ‘The New and the Novel in the 19th Century / New Directions in 19th Century Studies’ I gave the keynote, ‘Telling Tales about Chlorodyne: Nineteenth-Century Studies, Secret Remedies, and the Archive’. The conference programme is archived here (pdf).
Midwestern Victorian Studies Association, Columbia, Missouri, 8-10 April
The theme of this year’s MVSA was ‘Victorian News: Print Culture and the Periodical Press’. My paper was ‘Too Much to Read: Victorian Newspapers and the Abundance of News’. The conference website is here.
Seminar in the History of Material Texts, Centre for Material Texts, Cambridge University, 3 March 2016
At this seminar I presented a revised version of my work on Mugby Junction. My presentation was called ‘Moving Things: Replication, Mediation, and Serialisation in Charles Dickens’s Mugby Junction‘. Details are here.
2015:
Debating the Book: Past, Present, and Future, University of Leeds, 8 October 2015
This event, organized by the White Rose consortium, was part of the Debating the Book season at the University of Leeds. The debate was chaired by Melvyn Bragg and featured Stella Butler (Leeds University Librarian and Keeper of the Brotherton), Brian Cummings (York), James Daunt (CEO Waterstones), Bridgette Wessels (Sheffield). Further details are here and you can watch the debate here
Raymond: A Day of Commemoration of the Lodge Family and the First World War, St George’s Edgbaston, 19 September 2015
I was privileged to be able to give a lecture as part of this day of commemoration marking 100 years since the death of Raymond Lodge, Oliver Lodge’s son killed at Ypres in the First World War. My talk was simply entitled ‘Oliver Lodge in Birmingham’. Further details are here
British Association for Victorian Studies Annual Conference, Leeds Trinity, 27-29 August 2015
My talk was part of a special Northern Nineteenth-Century Network panel on ‘Victorian Secrets’. My talk was entitled ‘Time to Tell: Secrecy and Narrative in the Nineteenth-Century’. It was quite speculative, exploring the links between narrative, secrecy, and the codex form. You can read the abstract here. The conference website is here.
Digital Humanities Field School, Bader International Study Centre, Herstmonceux Castle, 17 June 2015
I was really pleased to be able to join the students at the DH Field School at BISC. My talk was called ‘Digitization and the Proximal Past’ and revisited some thoughts on DH from a few years ago.
Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies Seminar, Leeds Trinity University, 15 June 2015
My talk was entitled ‘Moving Things: Media and Mediation in Dickens’s Mugby Junction’ and was the latest iteration of this ongoing research.
Working with Nineteenth-Century Medical and Health Periodicals, St Anne’s, Oxford, 30 May 2015
This conference gave me a chance to update my chlorodyne work. My paper was entitled ”Telling Tales about Secret Remedies: The Case of Chlorodyne’. You can read my proposal here. The conference website is here, the programme is here, and the tweets have been storified here.
Victorian Research Seminar, Oxford University, 4 May 2015
I gave the latest version of my work on Dickens’s Mugby Junction. My talk was entitled ‘Moving Things: Media and Mediation in Dickens’s Mugby Junction‘.
Nineteenth-Century Replication and its Digital Legacy, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, 10 April 2015
My paper was ‘Extra! W.T. Stead, replication, and periodical form’, using W.T. Stead’s Pall Mall Gazette supplements to think about seriality.
Publish or Perish? The Past, Present and Future of the Scientific Journal, Royal Society, 19-21 March 2015
I also spoke about Lodge at this event. My paper was ‘Conservative Attitudes to Old-Established Organs: Oliver Lodge and the Philosophical Magazine‘ and looked at Lodge’s longstanding relationships with the Philosophical Magazine, culiminating with his editorship of it from 1911 until his death. The conference site is here.
Public lecture, Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham, 16 March 2015
This was the Cadbury Research Library Annual lecture and was held as part of the University of Birmingham’s Science and Art Festival. My lecture was entitled ‘Civic Life: Oliver Lodge and Birmingham’. Further details can be found on the Making Waves site and at the University of Birmingham’s event page.
Scientific Lives: Oliver Lodge and the History of Science in the Digital Age, Leeds Arts Gallery, 6 March 2015
My paper was entitled ‘”Matter moves, but ether is strained” Oliver Lodge, materiality and media’. Further details about the event can be found on the Making Waves site.
2014:
Magazines and / as Media, 14-16 August 2014, University of Alberta
I presented the latest version of my paper ‘”In Our Last”: the Presence of the Previous in Magazine Form.’ Details of the conference (including the abstracts) are available on the conference website.
Australasian Victorian Studies Association, Hong Kong, 10-12 July 2014
I presented the latest version of my work on media and Mugby Junction, ‘Whirling Wheels and Moving Lessons: Moving Things in Dickens’s Mugby Junction‘. The conference web page is here.
Objects of Modernity, University of Birmingham, 23-24 June 2014
My object of modernity was the absent body of Oliver Lodge’s son, Raymond. In my paper, ‘”The Prospect of Our Brethren Slain”: Oliver Lodge, Raymond, and Paperwork’, I looked at the way Lodge uses paperwork to testify to Raymond’s continuing life after death. The conference website is here. I posted my abstract here.
Enabling Access to Digitized Historic Newspapers, British Library, 9 June 2014
I chaired the final roundtable, featuring Lorna Hughes (National Library of Wales), Ian Tester (DC Thomson), Anne Buchanan (Bath Central Library), and Paul Gooding (UCL). Details about the event are available on the British Library’s blog The Newsroom.
London Nineteenth Century Studies Seminar, 6 June 2014
I gave a response to Lloyd Pratt’s paper, ‘Periodicity without Periodicals: a woman is reading Emerson in the American South’. Details about the seminar series are here.
Ashgate Research Companion to Victorian Periodicals Day, University of Greenwich, 27 May 2014
I gave a short summary of my forthcoming chapter, ‘Digitization’, for the Ashgate Research Companion.
Launch of the Brotherton First Folio Resource, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, 12 May 2014
I gave a short talk called ‘”In full red goatskin”: objects in and of the archive’ to mark the launch of the Brotherton First Folio Resource.
Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research Visiting Speakers, Cardiff University, 1 April 2014
I gave a revised version of my work on media and mobility entitled ‘Moving Things: Media and Mediation in Dickens’s Mugby Junction‘. The Centre’s programme of seminars is here. You can read an earlier draft of this work, derived from my MIVSS lecture in 2013, here.
The Study of Literature in the Digital Age, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 15 March 2014
My paper was entitled ‘“In Our Last”: Serials, Seriality, and the Archive’ and was the latest revision of my work on seriality and the archive.
Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science Seminar Series, University of Leeds, 26 February 2014
I gave a revised version of my talk, ‘Chlorodyne: Telling Tales About a Drug Whose “Composition Cannot be Discovered”‘, in the Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science’s seminar series.
2013:
Victorian Research Seminar, University of Leeds, Wednesday 27 November 2013
I gave a revised version of my MIVSS keynote as a seminar paper. The paper was titled ‘Moving Things: Circulation and Repetition in Victorian Print Culture’ and I’m blogging it as a series of posts at the moment. The first is here.
Resurrecting the Book, Library of Birmingham, 15-17 November 2013
I was really lucky to be able to speak at this conference, organized to mark the opening of the Library of Birmingham. My talk was a revised version of the paper I gave at RSVP called ‘In our last: The presence of the previous in the nineteenth-century periodical.’ The website is here.
Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) Annual Conference, 12-13 July 2013
My talk, ‘”In Our Last”: The Presence of the Previous in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical’ was on a panel ‘What’s the Use of Theory’ with Matthew Philpotts and Margaret Beetham. The full programme is available on the conference website. I’ve blogged the introduction of this talk here.
Midlands Interdisciplinary Victorian Studies Seminar (MIVSS), University of Birmingham, 5 July 2013
My keynote at MIVSS, ‘Moving Things: Circulation and Repetition in Victorian Print Culture’, explores different aspects of the materiality of print. The MIVSS website is here. I am planning on blogging this as a series of posts over the summer.
Issues in the Digital Humanities, Working Class Movement Library, 21 June 2013
This two-day event offered training and discussion for those interested in digital resources for historical and literary research. My keynote, ‘Transforming the Archive: Beyond Digitization as Deficit’ addressed the theoretical and practical implications of digitization, while also considering the difficulties in embedding critical digital skills in the curriculum.
(Re)presenting the Archive, University of Sheffield, 28 May 2013
My talk, ‘From Hacking the Book to Folios and File Formats: embedding digital literacy in the history of the “book”‘, considered the development of my undergraduate module in the digital humanities and its place within the English programme at Birmingham. For further details, click here. I will post some of the talk on my blog.
Digital Transformers, Manchester Metropolitan University, 23 May 2013
My keynote talk, ‘The Proximal Past: Digital Archives, History, and the Here and Now’ addresses the way our understanding of the past depends upon the material forms of the objects that survive. My argument is that digitization, which entails a radical transformations of material form, necessarily changes the past. For further details about the day, click here. I’ve blogged my paper here.
British Society for Literature and Science, Cardiff, 11-13 April 2013
I gave a paper called ‘Lodged in the archive: Physics, Paperwork, and the Ether’, part of a panel ‘Approaches to Literature and Technology’ organized by Greg Lynall. For further details about the conference, click here. I hope to blog this soon.
‘Interdisciplinary Conversations on the Long 19th Century’, Edinburgh Napier University, 15 March 2013
I gave a revised paper on Chlorodyne entitled ‘Chlorodyne: Telling Tales about a Drug Whose “Composition Cannot be Discovered”’.
English Department Research Seminar, Bangor University, 20 February 2013.
This invitation provided the opportunity to develop different parts of ‘”Scarers in Print” for a new audience.
Expert Seminar on research use of Digital Newspaper Collections
I was invited to speak at this seminar to mark the launch of Welsh Newspapers Online. My paper can be found here.
English Literature Research Seminar, University of Birmingham, 4 February 2013
I gave a revised version of ‘”Scarers in Print”: Media Literacy from Our Mutual Friend to Friend Me On Facebook’.
MLA Convention, Boston, USA, 3-6 January 2013
I contributed to panel #384 ‘What is a Journal? Towards a Theory of Periodical Studies’ alongside Ann Ardis, Sean Latham, Dallas Liddle, and Matthew Philpotts. The papers were prepared in advance and you can see mine on my blog, but you can read the whole lot on the ESPRit website.
2012:
Accessing heritage research collections through digitisation: models and use, British Library, 30 October 2012
This is the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) annual seminar. I contributed to a panel on digitization alongside Tim Hitchcock and Andrew Prescott. Details can be found here.
Sentiment and Sensation in Victorian Periodicals, RSVP Annual Conference, University of Texas, Austin Texas, USA, 14-15 September 2012
My paper was entitled ‘When Sensation is Justifiable: W.T. Stead, Sensation and the Form of the Newspaper’. It’s a paper that looks at Stead’s investigative journalism from a different angle: wheras the SHARP paper considers what changes when investigative journalism becomes a book, this paper focuses on how the poetics of scandal relate to the form of the newspaper. The conference website is here.
The Battle for Books, SHARP Annual Conference, Trinity College Dublin, 26-29 June 2012
I spoke on a panel entitled ‘From Periodical to Book: Materiality, Media, and Expression’ with Doris Lechner (@dolechner) and Stefanie Lethbridge (both University of Freiburg). My talk was entitled ‘“The only book possible to-day is a Newspaper”: W.T. Stead and the Politics of Form in Late Nineteenth-Century Investigative Journalism’ and I hope to post it soon. The conference website is here.
Transforming Objects, Northumbria University, 28-29 May 2012
This two day conference, organised by Nicole Bush and Anna Hope, was dedicated (to quote the cfp) to exploring ‘the transformation of objects and the transformations effected by objects’ from the c18th to the c20th. My paper was entitled ‘Chlorodyne: Telling Transformative Tales about a Drug Whose “Composition Cannot be Discovered”‘. The abstract is here and I hope to post the paper on the blog in the next month or so.
W.T. Stead: Centenary Conference for a Newspaper Revolutionary, British Library, 16-17 April 2012
This conference marked the centenary of W.T. Stead’s death on the Titanic. I did not give a paper, but was one of the organizers. Details about the conference, including the programme, are available on the conference website.
“Scarers in Print”: Literacy and Media Practice from Our Mutual Friend to Friend Me on Facebook
This talk was delivered at the London Nineteenth-Century Studies Seminar, Senate House, University of London, 17 March 2012. The seminar was the last in a series dedicated to exploring the influence of Ong’s Orality and Literacy on nineteenth-century studies. The abstract of my talk is here; further details about the day are here. I am blogging the paper as a series of posts entitled ‘Scarers in Print’.
Form and Content in the Nineteenth-Century News of the World
This was a position paper presented at the opening rountable, ‘Victorian Beginnings’, at ‘The News of the World in History’, King’s College London, 24 February 2012. The program is here and I’ve posted a version of my position paper here.
2011:
‘Science as Information in the Nineteenth-Century Press’
I gave versions of this paper at the Society for the History of Authorship, Readership and Publishing (SHARP), National Institute of Health, Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian, Washington DC, 14-17 July 2011 and the Research Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) Annual Conference, Canterbury Christ Church University, 22-23 July 2011.
‘The Magazine and the Nineteenth-Century Information Economy; Or, What Were Victorian Magazines For?’
This presentation was delivered at ‘Mapping the Magazine 3’, Cardiff University, 7-8 July 2011. There is a conference website, with abstracts and papers, here.
Rountable contribution
I spoke on a roundtable about digital scholarship at ‘Knowledge Networks:Nineteenth Century American Periodicals, Print Cultures and Communities’, University of Nottingham, 27 May 2011.
The Nineteenth-Century Press in the Digital Age: Digitization, Representation and Bibliographic Control
This was the first seminar of the University of Salford’s Periodicals Research Cluster, 13 April 2011.
Chlorodyne: Telling Tales About a Drug Whose ‘Composition Cannot be Discovered’
Delivered at the Literature Research Seminar, University of Birmingham, 6 February 2011.
‘Science as Information in the Nineteenth-Century Press’
I gave versions of this paper at the Society for the History of Authorship, Readership and Publishing (SHARP), National Institute of Health, Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian, Washington DC, 14-17 July 2011 and the Research Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) Annual Conference, Canterbury Christ Church University, 22-23 July 2011.
‘The Magazine and the Nineteenth-Century Information Economy; Or, What Were Victorian Magazines For?’
This presentation was delivered at ‘Mapping the Magazine 3’, Cardiff University, 7-8 July 2011. There is a conference website, with abstracts and papers, here.
Rountable contribution
I spoke on a roundtable about digital scholarship at ‘Knowledge Networks:Nineteenth Century American Periodicals, Print Cultures and Communities’, University of Nottingham, 27 May 2011.
The Nineteenth-Century Press in the Digital Age: Digitization, Representation and Bibliographic Control
This was the first seminar of the University of Salford’s Periodicals Research Cluster, 13 April 2011.
Chlorodyne: Telling Tales About a Drug Whose ‘Composition Cannot be Discovered’
Delivered at the Literature Research Seminar, University of Birmingham, 6 February 2011.
The importance of genre for understanding the nineteenth century newspaper press, as print and digital resource
A paper delivered at ‘Exploring the Language of the Popular in Anglo-American Newspapers, 1833-1938’, University of Sheffield, 14 Jan 2011.