Victorian Legacies

In this episode I'm joined by Azza Hussen, who researches into the works of Charles Dickens. We talk about how her resarch looks at how Dickens' work engaged with or challenged contemporary 19th century dream theories, in novels like Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son. We observe how some 19th century dream theories had a moralistic viewpoint, in that moral people couldn't have bad dreams.

About my guest: Azza is a second year PhD student at the University of Leicester, researching Dickens and nineteenth century dream theories .

For more information on Azza's work, check out the details below:

https://le.ac.uk/victorian-studies/people/phd-students

Check out Azza's suggestions:

Charles Dickens -"The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices" (1857) (with Wilkie Collins)
Elizabeth Macneal - The Doll Factory

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Alora Hayward, who researches into Victorian literary works such as Christina Rossetti, George Gissing, Amy Levy and Charlotte Bronte. We talk about academic study in the pandemic and how this has helped us to reevaluate things, and also how nineteenth century attitudes towards gender, class and sexuality can be reflected today.

About my guest:

Alora Hayward graduated from The University of Winnipeg with her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in June 2021 and is a current MA student at Queen’s University finishing up her degree. She will be graduating in the latter half of 2022. Alora considers herself to be a junior scholar whose research interests are: Victorian Prose and Poetry, Gender and Sexuality, Class, The New Woman, The Fallen Woman, The Odd Woman, and The Woman Question. Though Alora is not completing her PhD in academia, she is pursuing her love of creative writing by applying for PhD’s in the UK for the 2023 year. Her focus in that area is creative non-fiction, and free-verse poetry.

For more information on Alora's work, check out the details below:

Twitter: @alorajade
Instagram: @deargentlesoul_
Blog: http://www.alorajadeswriting.wordpress.com

Check out Alora's suggestions:
George Gissing: Workers in the Dawn, The Nether World, The Odd Women
Charlotte Bronte: Villette
Anne Bronte: Agnes Grey
The Irregulars (TV series)
Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Caterina Liberace, who researches into the use of Victorian architecture and décor in twentieth and twenty-first century Gothic horror. We consider how the archetypal haunted house we now associate as a Gothic house, is an trans-Atlantic incarnation, and emerged after WWII. We think about how the country house exemplifies this, and how the house also acts as a vampiric institution, creating opportunities to think about how this space is represented in literature.

About my guest: Caterina earned her BA in History and International Relations from George Washington University and an MA in European History at UCL; She currently in her final year of Modern British History MPhil at the University of Oxford, and she will start her PhD in the autumn.

Check out Cat's suggestions:

Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog, The Doomsday Book
Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Mexican Gothic
Edith Wharton - Mr Jones, All Souls
E.F. Benson - How Fear Departed the Long Gallery
Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
Terry Pratchett - Going Postal, Making Money, Raising Steam

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Dr Eleanor Dobson, who researches into the reception of ancient Egypt during the 19th and 20th centuries. We discuss the centenary of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, and the stories around the famous 'curses'. We consider what 19th and 20th century Egyptologists were reading, and how they wrote their own stories. We consider how perceptions of the curses developed or changed in the 19th century onwards, and how ancient Egypt and curses are represented in 20th and 21st century films.

About my guest: Dr Eleanor Dobson is Associate Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Birmingham. Her first book, Writing the Sphinx: Literature, Culture and Egyptology came out with Edinburgh University Press in 2020, and her second book, Victorian Alchemy: Science, Magic and Ancient Egypt, is out with UCL Press later this year

For more information on Ellie's work, check out the details below:

Check out Ellie's suggestions:

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010 movie)
Louisa May Alcott - Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy's Curse

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Dr Barbara Franchi, who researches into neo-Victorian fiction, intertextuality and echoes of Empire. We consider issues such as the risks of nostalgia in society, and the enduring legacy of the 19th century in neo-Victorian works. We discuss the idea of a neo-Victorian 'canon' and how literature and critical scholarship is redefining this concept - as well as the whole genre of neo-Victorianism. We consider the roots of the field and genre in the reaction to Thatcherism, and how the British-centric approach is actually an Anglocentric one, and narrowed to a specific idea of Englishness.

About my guest: Dr Barbara Franchi obtained her PhD in 2017 from the University of Kent, where she wrote a thesis on A. S. Byatt’s fiction and intertextuality. She holds a BA in Modern Languages and an MA in English and Postcolonial studies, both from the University of Venice (Italy). Her research focuses on contemporary women's writing, cultural memory, historical fiction, and echoes of Empire in all of the above: it is through these angles that she approaches neo-Victorianism. She has published book chapters and articles on neo-Victorian and neo-historical authors such as Byatt (in Sea Narratives, ed. Charlotte Mathieson: Palgrave 2016), Eleanor Catton (Partial Answers, 2018), Rose Tremain and Isabel Allende (Neo-Victorian Studies, 2019), and David Mitchell (with the Italian journal MediAzioni, 2019). Future publications include a chapter on Byatt’s The Children’s Book and Peacock and Vine (in Neo-Victorian Decadences, forthcoming within Rodopi’s Neo-Victorian series), and an article on the novelist’s short stories (in the Journal of the Short Story in English). She has also worked on travel studies, co-editing Crossing Borders in Victorian Travel: Spaces, Nations and Empires (Cambridge Scholars 2018, with Elvan Mutlu): the collection examines imperialism and intercultural crossovers in Victorian travel writing, covering travel accounts, fiction and journalism. She has taught at the Universities of Newcastle, Kent, and Canterbury Christ Church, and is now a Teaching Fellow at Durham University.

For more information on Barbara's work, check out the details below:

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: barbara_franchi
Academia: https://durham.academia.edu/BarbaraFranchi

Check out Barbara's suggestions:

Angels and Insects (1995 film)
Sophie Ellis-Bextor -- Love is a Camera (2014 single and video)
Sarah Waters : The Little Stranger
Abdulrazak Gurnah - Desertion, Afterlives

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Dr Dominique Gracia, who had worked on repetitions and revisions, and adaptation theory. We discuss the influence of Sherlock Holmes on modern TV detectives in series such as Sherlock and Vienna Blood. We observe the ways in which we see works through adaptations, and how neo-Victorian works may influence how we think or perceive the nineteenth century. We also discuss hidden stories about Victorian female detectives, and how Holmes' legacy persists today.

About my guest: Dominique is an independent scholar who’s currently Chief of Staff for the Director of UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Her research focuses on repetitions and revisions, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s double-works to the pot-boiling of popular fiction. Her most recent publications focus on early female detectives and Sherlock Holmes’ influence on modern TV detectives, and she is currently writing a collection of Neo-Victorian short stories featuring a Welsh female detective in East London.

For more information on Dominique's work, check out the details below:
https://exeter.academia.edu/DominiqueGracia

Check out Dominique's suggestions:

Kim Newman - Professor Moriaty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles
Anthony Horowitz - Moriarty
Nev March - Murder in Old Bombay: A Mystery
J.C. Briggs - The Murder of Patience Brooke
Heather Redmond - A Dickens of a Crime Series

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Deborah Siddoway, who researches into how the nineteenth century English novel was both informed by and influenced the path of divorce law reform in England. We discuss how all her authors had complex relationships with marriage, and how this is reflected in their works. We also discuss how the no-fault divorce was ended at the time of recording, and how this changes a lot of things for people seeking divorces in England. We discuss her PhD progress, and also her podcast, The Story of Divorce, which tells the story to the background of divorce law in England, and explains the impetus behind the Divorce Act of 1857 finally being passed, making divorce more accessible in England with the establishment of the Divorce Court in London.


About my guest: Deborah graduated with a BA and an LLB from Sydney University, and then worked as a legal researcher for the Honourable Justice Beazley of the Court of Appeal of New South Wales, before beginning her career as a dual-qualified solicitor in leading legal firms in both Sydney and London. She was awarded an MA by research in Dickens Studies with the University of Buckingham for her paper entitled The Twisting of the Ring: Dickens, Divorce and the Evolution of his Views on Marriage. She was awarded the 2019 Partlow Prize for her paper ‘Misfortnet Marriages’: Discussing Divorce in Household Words. She commenced her PhD part-time in 2020, where her research examines how the nineteenth century English novel was both informed by and influenced the path of divorce law reform in England, with a focus on the works of authors such as Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Caroline Norton, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie Collins in the context of a specific consideration of the social and legal imperatives leading to the enactment of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, one of the most comprehensive and significant reforms of the archaic system governing the marital relationship of the era. She is a postgraduate representative on the advisory board for the Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies. Her podcast series, The Story of Divorce, tells the stories of the bigamists, the bastards, the feminists, and the fornicators that helped give us the law of divorce that exists in England today.

For more information on Deborah's work, check out the details below:
Podcast (The Story of Divorce): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-story-of-divorce/id1586957709
Gov.uk link on No Fault Divorce: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/blame-game-ends-as-no-fault-divorce-comes-into-force

Check out Deborah's suggestions:
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
Kathryn Hughes: Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum
Hallie Rubenhold: The Five

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Dr Anna Gasperini, where we discuss her work on children's literature and child nutrition. We discuss how food in children's literature sublimates and represents a lot of things, including 'taboo' subjects. Children's literature was previously seen as unsophisticated in the academy (like fantasy), which segues into a brief chat about Terry Pratchett's Discworld! We then continue to consider how food was linked to the acceptable and unacceptable body and how that notion is constructed in society, reinforced or challenged in children's literature. The greedy child and the mal/nourished child, and how these both are seen as unacceptable within 19th century.

Trigger warning for some dark children's literature.

About my guest: Dr Anna Gasperini is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. She has just completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions research project on English and Italian nineteenth-century children’s literature and the history of child nutrition. Her most recent article on the topic, “The ‘Gluttonous Child’ Narrative in Italy and Britain: A Transnational Analysis”, has been published OA in the Journal of Victorian Culture. She is the author of Nineteenth Century Popular Fiction, Medicine, and Anatomy - The Victorian Penny Blood and the 1832 Anatomy Act (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

For more information on Anna's work, check out the details below:
Twitter: @AnnaGDreadful

Latest Articles (Full links for these are open access and will be available on our FB page!):
“Little Precossi, Stunted Becky: A Comparative Analysis of Child Hunger and National Body Health Discourses in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Children’s Literature in Italian and English”. Modern Languages Open, (1), 2022, p.2.
“The ‘Gluttonous Child’ Narrative in Italy and Britain: A Transnational Analysis”. Journal of Victorian Culture, 2022,
“‘I know I'm fatter’: hunger and bodily awareness in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden”. Rhesis – International Journal of Linguistics, Philology and Literature. Issue 11.2, 2020.

Check out Anna's suggestions:

Terry Pratchett - Dodger
Christina Rossetti - Speaking Likenesses
Hugh Cunningham - The Invention of Childhood
Sarah Wise - The Italian Boy

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Michelle Ravenscroft, who has recently co-edited the third volume of the popular Talking Bodies series. We chat about our shared experience at Talking Bodies and how Michelle's MA thesis on identity formation in adolescents in the long 19th century literature was turned into a chapter. We also discuss her foundational stages of the PhD project she is working on, on the importance of the Portico Library in Manchester, through readings of The Manchester Man. We also share our love of interdisciplinarity as we debate why the nineteenth century continues to influence and fascinate society today.

About my guest: Michelle Ravenscroft is an educational consultant and a second year part-time PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research proposes to interrogate the importance of the Portico Library, Manchester, and the significance of Northern identity and place in the nineteenth-century text The Manchester Man. In her spare-time she enjoys editing book collections, and recently finished co-editing Talking Bodies III for University of Chester Press.

For more information on Michelle's work, check out the details below:

PGR/ECR Long 19th Century Twitter: @l19thc
https://long19century.wordpress.com

Talking Bodies III - https://storefront.chester.ac.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12_14&products_id=1067

Check out Michelle's suggestions:

Isabella Banks - The Manchester Man

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]

In this episode I'm joined by Michelle Reynolds, who researches into representations of the New Woman in fin de siècle illustration. We discuss how the New Woman was featured in art, specifically in illustration. We observe how fairy tales writers like Evelyn Sharp used these to push forward ideas about feminism, reflecting what was in New Woman fiction but aiming these ideas at children. We consider how such tales explored gender identity and dress, coinciding with how the New Woman's dress was seen as a threat to society (alongside demasculinised men and the dandy figure)

About my guest: Michelle Reynolds is a PhD student at the University of Exeter. Her thesis looks at the relationship between the New Woman’s emergence and the professionalism of women illustrators at the British fin de siècle as well as the New Woman’s visual representation and how women illustrators contributed to this representation. More broadly, her research interests include art and literature of the long nineteenth century, women artists, gender and sexuality, print and exhibition culture, photography, and fashion. She is currently a Postgraduate Representative for the University of Exeter’s Centre for Victorian Studies and a Board Member for the journal Romance, Revolution and Reform based at the University of Southampton. Michelle also has an upcoming chapter in the Women in Power collection (edited by Dr Fern Riddell, Dr Emma Butcher, and Dr Bob Nicholson). Michelle's chapter will be in Volume 1: "Bodies: Female Agency, Identity and Sex in the 19th Century". This is due to be published by Bloomsbury Academic in early 2023!

For more information on Michelle's work, check out the details below:

https://centreforvictorianstudies.wordpress.com/

https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/arthistory/staff/reynolds/

Check out Michelle's suggestions:

The Colour Room - movie about Clarice Cliff's life
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain - movie about Louis Wain's life
A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray
The Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner
The Romance of a Shop - Amy Levy

Episode Credits:

Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound

Check us out at the following social media pages and websites!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorianlegaciespodcast
Twitter: @victorianlegac1
Instagram: @victorianlegaciespodcast
Website: https://emmacatan.wordpress.com/victorian-legacies-podcast/
Email: [email protected]