Our first session of 2020 is a topic to which surely no-one in the nineteenth-century group can relate: hangovers. More specifically, Dr. Jonathon Shears from Keele University will be talking to us on ‘Penitents and Egotists: Hangover Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century’.
The session takes place in MB2204 (Minerva Building, 2nd Floor). Refreshments are at 4pm and the paper is due to start at 4.15pm. All are welcome. Please find Jon’s abstract and biography below:
Abstract
While research into the hangover is now a subfield of medicine and psychology, the topic has rarely featured in the field of drinking studies in the humanities, which has preferred to focus on drinking cultures and customs, particularly male and female sociability. Yet, hangover literature has much to tell us about the ways in which drinking is governed not only by physiology but also ‘cultural beliefs and social practices’ of the sort that Jonathan Herring has identified as central to understanding the representation of alcohol. In this paper, I will explore the presence of the hangover in literature of the long nineteenth century, considering what it tells us about the relationship between an individual and their environment, the politics of controlling alcohol consumption and the complex ways in which alcohol affects our perception of body and mind.
Biography
Jonathon Shears is Senior Lecturer in English at Keele University. He has recently completed work on a monograph on the hangover in literature (published by Liverpool University Press in March 2020). He has also published books on Milton and the Romantics, Lord Byron, The Great Exhibition and Victorian bric-à-brac. He was Editor of The Byron Journal from 2012-2019. He is currently editing the Oxford Handbook of Lord Byron.