This open access book draws on conceptual resources ranging from medieval scholasticism to postmodern theory to propose a new understanding of secular time and its mediation in nineteenth-century technological networks. Untethering the concept of secularity from questions of ‘religion’ and ‘belief’, it offers an innovative rethinking of the his…[Read more]

From living dolls to spirits wandering in search of solace or vengeance, the ghostly youth is one of the most enduring phenomena of supernatural fiction, its roots stretching back into the realms of folklore and superstition. In this spine-tingling new collection Jen Baker gathers a selection of the most chilling hauntings and encounters with…[Read more]

In the mid nineteenthcentury, a subgenre of ghost stories emerged that had roots in a hybrid tradition of institutional religious doctrine and oral folkloric expressions of anxiety over the fate of the child’s soul in the afterlife. Given the persistently high infant mortality rates and increased public awareness of child abuse across the c…[Read more]

in Vision, Contestation and Deception: Interrogating Gender and the Supernatural in Victorian Shorter Fiction, ed. Oindrila Ghosh (Avenel Press, 2021), pp.51-58

Historically, tourism in Wales was invigorated by the reinvention of mountain scenery during the Romantic period when travellers gained new perspectives of the terrain from higher ground. It is also during this period that inns and guesthouses began keeping visitors’ books in which guests evaluated their surroundings and their hosts’ good ser…[Read more]

This article argues that May Kendall’s comic verse presents a sustained consideration of one of the most prominent intellectual trends in late-Victorian Britain: the revival of idealist philosophy. Kendall’s poetry encapsulates and interrogates the connections between several important aspects of late-Victorian culture. Her thinking about idealism…[Read more]

The writings of Arthur Hugh Clough display a sustained interest in the relations between an individual, his or her generation, and the processes of historical change that distinguish and demarcate one generation from another. As someone who spent much of his life as a student and teacher, Clough was self-consciously aware of his location within an…[Read more]

For centuries, continental Europeans have come to Wales for numerous reasons. During the Romantic period some came seeking a rural idyll, whilst others in the Victorian era travelled as industrial spies, and during times of war many refugees escaped to Wales to find shelter from persecution. Not only have continental Europeans left their traces…[Read more]

The Victorian Era was one of transitions. Victorian Britain transitioned from a rural to urban society. It transitioned from an emergent empire to the dominant imperial power. It transitioned from a walking, water, wind, and animal-based transportation system to a steam-powered transportation system. It transitioned from a regional to national and…[Read more]

This is the PowerPoint presentation to accompany my comments for the Theoretical Foundations of Victorian Studies roundtable on January 7, 2021.

This chapter discusses two early anarchist conceptions of utopianism, a romantic conception associated with Gustav Landauer and a rationalist ideal linked to Peter Kropotkin. I argue that the differences have been exaggerated. Landauer and Kropotkin followed different paths, but they formulated their responses to utopianism in the same context,…[Read more]

This article examines William Morris’s idea of Englishness, considered through a critique of his concept of fellowship or community. It looks at the charge
that Morris wrongly neglected the importance of nationality as a focus for organization in socialism, preferring instead an internationalist ideal, based on an
unworkable model of s…[Read more]

This paper examines the politics of Morris’s understanding of art in socialism. At the centre of the analysis is the claim Morris makes for art’s democratisation and his commitment to the transformation of labour – into productive leisure – through art. The conditions for this transformation, namely, the abolition of commerce and the realisa…[Read more]

This chapter discusses William Morris’s rejection of anarchist communism as individualistic. The first discusses his treatment of anarchist communism as a generic form. It
examines his motivations for advancing the critique and sets out the key concepts on which he later relied to develop his analysis of decision-making. The relationship between…[Read more]

This article examines Ernest Belfort Bax’s interpretation of the French Revolution and traces the impact that his idea of the Revolution had on his philosophy and his political thought. The first section considers Bax’s understanding of the Revolution in the context of his theory of history and analyses his conception of the Revolution’s legacy,…[Read more]

In the ten years following the publication of the infamous Reports on the State of Education in Wales (1847) that had classified the Welsh population as a vice-ridden nation of working-class drunkards and promiscuous hoydens, the middle-classes in Wales strongly rejected this Anglo-centric condemnation at first in the press and, later on, in…[Read more]

Projects that bridge the humanities and sciences often attract attention from journalists, but evoke dismay from humanists who feel that their subjects of expertise have been misinterpreted. For the humanities to reclaim a place of pride in public conversation, humanists themselves need to embrace interdisciplinarity and take the lead in this…[Read more]

Published during a time of rapid colonial expansion, Richard Doddridge Blackmore’s The Maid of Sker (1872) constitutes a conglomerate of fictional autobiography, historical and sensation novel. It takes the reader on a number of voyages to witness the most important British sea battles at the end of the eighteenth century. Considering the…[Read more]

Analogy, the comparison of one set of relations to another, was essential to Humphry Davy’s understanding of chemistry. Throughout his career, Davy used analogical reasoning to direct and to interpret his experimental analyses of the chemical reactions between substances. In his writing, he deployed analogies to organise and to explain his t…[Read more]