Members of the C19 Research Group and guests are warmly invited to the next meeting, on Thursday 12th April at 5pm.

Two papers will be presented:

Grace Harvey (University of Lincoln) – Robert Bage, Sorority and Friendship in the 1790s

Thomas Kupper (University of Lincoln) -The role of the stained glass amateur

Both papers are delivered by current postgraduate research students in the College of Arts. This is an opportunity to hear about their PhD projects, and our final meeting of semester B 2018-19.

Refreshments will be served from 5pm in MB3202.

Our final C19 session of this Semester features Dr. Amy Culley (Lincoln) talking to us on ‘Narratives of Ageing in the Life Writing of Mary Berry’ (no, not that one).

The session will take place next Thursday, the 30^th November, in room MB3202. The paper will begin at 5.15pm, with refreshments from 5pm.

Please find Amy’s abstract and bio below.

See you there!

‘A journal of my feelings, mind & Body’

Narratives of Ageing in the Life Writing of Mary Berry (1763-1852)

This paper provides new perspectives on old age, gender, and sociability in the early nineteenth century through discussion of a rich variety of life writing texts by historian, biographer, and editor, Mary Berry. In her manuscript journal, Berry narrates her experience of the life course from her twenties until her death at the age of eighty-nine in a self-conscious and intimate commentary on ageing as a single woman. She mixes chronological, personal, cultural, and physical definitions of ageing, and addresses themes of the body, memory, reading, writing, faith and friendship. Yet a comparison of her manuscript with the posthumously published printed work of 1865 reveals how Berry’s reflections on old age were radically reshaped for a Victorian readership. Beyond the journal, Berry’s correspondence within a network of older male and female letter-writers provides insight into intragenerational relationships and highlights the significance of age for studies of friendship in this period. The theme also manifests in her biographical works, in which her depictions of older female figures do not treat old age as an epilogue to a life (as is typical of the biographical tradition) but rather develop the critical reflections on the pleasures and perils of ageing expressed in her journal. In recent years there has been a growing critical recognition of Berry, beyond her image as the youthful friend and editor of Horace Walpole, and her life and work have featured in studies of literary salons, travel writing, the theatre, historical writing, and women’s literary networks. Reading Berry’s life writing through the lens of ageing contributes to this work of recovery and reveals her as an acute reporter on her travels through late life.

Amy Culley is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Lincoln. She is the author of British Women’s Life Writing, 1760–1840: Friendship, Community, and Collaboration (Palgrave, 2014), co-editor with Anna Fitzer of Editing Women’s Writing, 1670-1840 (Routledge, 2017), co-editor with Daniel Cook of Women’s Life Writing, 1700–1850: Gender, Genre and Authorship (Palgrave, 2012), and editor of Women’s Court and Society Memoirs, volumes 1–4 (Pickering & Chatto, 2009). She is currently researching narratives of ageing and old age in women’s life writing of the early nineteenth century, supported by a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant.

Please find below details of our first C19 Research Group session, which will take place on Thursday 12^th October in room MB3202 (Minerva building, 3^rd floor), with refreshments served from 5pm and the paper due to start at 5.15pm.

We hope to see lots of you there!

Dr. Cassie Ulph (Bishop Grosseteste University), ‘Anne Lister, the Halifax Lit and Phil, and Civic Improvement’

Anne Lister (1791-1840) is best – and rightly – known as a pivotal figure in the history of sexuality, whose detailed diaries of homosexual relationships, and same sex de facto marriage to her partner Ann Walker, disrupt assumptions about the sexual norms of the early nineteenth century.  This paper will address another aspect of Lister’s resistance to gendered norms, in the form of her active and determined engagement in the civic life and politics of Halifax.  Focusing on Lister’s membership of the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society (est. 1830), I will consider the ways in which civic leaders hoped to shape the culture of their town through such institutions, and the opportunity this presented in turn for Lister to shape her own identity and dynastic legacy.  I will also examine the extent and meaningfulness of Lister’s participation in the Society, in light of other intellectual and social networks of which she was part.

Cassie Ulph is a Lecturer in English at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, specialising in the literature and culture of the long eighteenth century.  She received her PhD from the University of Leeds in 2012, with a thesis that recontextualised Frances Burney’s work in relation to her formative experience of London artistic and musical culture, and her father Charles’s social and professional networks. Cassie’s recent work has focussed on women and intellectual community more broadly, and in particular on Hester Piozzi and Anne Lister.  Before joining BGU in 2016, Cassie was a research fellow on the Leverhulme-funded Networks of Improvement project at the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of York, and taught literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries at the Universities of Leeds and Manchester. In 2016, Cassie was awarded the McGill-ASECS Burney Fellowship, and the 2016-17 ASECS fellowship at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Cassie is a committee member, conference organiser and former treasurer of the Burney Society UK, and was a member of the organising committee of the 2017 British Association of Victorian Studies conference held at BGU.

The C19 schedule for Semester A is out, and we are delighted to have put together such an exciting programme. Please see details below.

Events Programme, 2017-18 – Semester A

12th Oct: Cassie Ulph (Bishop Grosseteste University) – ‘Anne Lister, the Halifax Lit and Phil, and Civic Improvement’

9th Nov: Enrico Acciai (University of Leeds) – ‘A Transnational Volunteer: the Life of Amilcare Cipriani between Garibaldinism and Radicalism’

30th Nov: Amy Culley (University of Lincoln) – ‘“A journal of my feelings, mind & Body”: Narratives of Ageing in the Life Writing of Mary Berry (1763-1852)’

All meetings take place in MB3202. Refreshments will be served at 5pm, and the session will begin at 5.15pm.

Finally, don’t forget to follow the group on Twitter – https://twitter.com/19thCLincoln

See you there!

At 4pm on Weds 24th May in room MB3202, Dr. Claire Nally (Northumbria) will be giving a talk on ‘Steampunk and the Museum’. Clarie’s paper will be the culmination of the Nineteenth-Century MA Symposium and is open to all. You can see Claire’s abstract and biography below. Refreshments will be available.