I'm grateful to @bavs-uk.bsky.social @vpfa.bsky.social @issegyptomania.bsky.social bsls.ac.uk @incsa.bsky.social @thebsls.bsky.social & so many individuals within the #Victorian #Gothic #Egyptomania #LitSci #PreRaphaeilite communities for friendship & support during my Research Fellowships.

Delighted to take up my 3rd Birkbeck Honorary Research Fellowship today. Looking back at some of the 30 conference papers I've presented since being awarded my doctorate, I'm excited for 2025-2026. @19birkbeck.bsky.social @theprofrog.bsky.social @drvickymills.bsky.social @luisacale.bsky.social

Bathed in blood-red light at #Dracula @lyrichammersmith.bsky.social soaking up the staging, centring of the relationship between Mina and Lucy, & Mina's key editorial role. Nice nod to those in the know with the appearance of the yellow-backed 1897 edition! Loved it! #Gothic @indiekid.bsky.social

Happy Birthday to Beatrix Potter: born 28 July 1866! An incredible woman: a writer, illustrator, nature lover and natural scientist, botanist, mycologist, entomologist, zoologist, archaeologist . . .

When you are determining where to submit your scholarly essay for potential publication & you opt not to send it to a specific journal bc their publisher is, say, licensing “content” to train AI — please tell the journal editor. This info is crucial for editors but shadowy / difficult to document.

#BAVS2025 you were a blast! 5 x Birkbeck papers from @drvickymills.bsky.social @nonfictioness.bsky.social @helenaesser.bsky.social Julia Kuehn and me! Great to hang with @jeremynewton64.bsky.social too! Such fun and sociability with so many great #Victorian scholars! @19birkbeck.bsky.social

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use

CFP for Sex in the #19thC (deets in alt) Abstracts (300 words), biographies (100 words), and should be submitted on Monday 22d September 2025 to rrr @ soton.ac.uk. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for a travel bursary, and include your full name, discipline & institution.

Bye forever, WeTransfer.

My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books.

Architect Alfred Waterhouse born #OTD 1830 to a Liverpool Quaker family. Buildings include Manchester Town Hall, London’s Natural History Museum, Liverpool University's Victoria building. His love of red brick and terracotta led to him being nicknamed 'Slaughterhouse Waterhouse'.

Also, if you're working on C19 sources, see @patrickleary.bsky.social's invaluable list of open-access 19th-c periodicals here:

‪Still buzzing after an amazing #VPFAextremes conference! What a treat to hear so many talented speakers and to present on Hypnotic Gothic alongside Birkbeck pals! @vpfa.bsky.social #Gothic #victorian

Delighted to welcome my splendid colleagues at @issegyptomania.bsky.social to Bluesky 🦋. Please consider giving them a follow on this platform, or even in becoming a member, they do incredible work on the reception of ancient Egypt and host numerous online lectures, seminars, and conferences!

New exhibition launching at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London, soon! One of the most remarkable artists of her generation, Evelyn De Morgan, is returning to Guildhall Art Gallery this April in an exhibition that premieres two newly restored artworks. Find out more: bit.ly/3QftfhI

Go follow our friends at the De Morgan Foundation, who have just joined Blue Sky. They have the most amazing collection of Evelyn De Morgan art and William De Morgan ceramics.

Roses are red Violets are purple Brain's flailing about Like an upside-down turtle! #AcademicValentine #AmNotWriing

The real-life models for Grant Wood’s American Gothic – Nan Wood Graham (Wood's sister) and Dr Byron McKeeby (Wood's dentist) – sitting in front of the painting at an exhibition at the Cedar Rapids Public Library (Wood's hometown) in 1942

May your insects bring more singing and less stinging in the coming year!

Seasons Greetings! Hope you're enjoying it as much as Starevich's 1913 insects gathered around the Christmas tree!

Christina Rossetti was born #otd in 1830. Her poem 'In the Bleak Midwinter' was originally published by Scribners in January 1872 as 'A Christmas Carol'. Gustav Holst set it to music in 1906. It was my father's favourite! @wikivictorian.bsky.social @19birkbeck.bsky.social @c19qmul.bsky.social

#Macbeth west end. Tennant, as always, was great at Shakespearean unhinged. All sound through headphones. No on-stage witches. Atmospheric music. Minimalist monochrome staging. Glass screen divided acting space. Lady Macbeth's white dress invited blood, but remained spotless! Prefer Terry's beetles!

I love the response of @dreframss.bsky.social to the question asked by @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social about which novel demands a Muppet re-make! I couldn't agree more that The Beetle would be an instant hit. I'm suggesting Miss Piggy for Marjorie Lindon, Kermit for Robert Holt & Animal for Atherton!

The best way to enjoy a #Victorian Christmas is with an intelligent #Dickens #ConanDoyle mash-up: A Sherlock Carol! Holmes is haunted by ghosts until he solves a case. Great fun. Lots of in-jokes for Victorianists! @drchrislouttit.bsky.social @victorianlondon.bsky.social @dickenssociety.bsky.social

On 03 December 1926, #AgathaChristie disappeared into the night. Her abandoned car was discovered containing her driving licence, fur coat and dressing case, but no clue to her whereabouts. Conan Doyle enlisted a clairvoyant to find her. 11 days later, she was found! (Image: Daily Mirror 07.12.26)

Optimist: the cup is half full Pessimist: the cup is half empty Archivist: either way, it is not permitted in the Reading Room

Optimist: The cup is half full. Pessimist: The cup is half empty. Literary critic: Difficulty and Opportunity: Liminality and the Cup in the Cultural Imaginary, 1789-1914

Sometimes Christmas accidentally acquires a tinge of the #Gothic - epitomised for me by a partially-mummified, zombie snowman pursued by relentless reindeer!

The advert for our Research Associate post in Victorian Cultural and Material History is now up on jobs.ac.uk - www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DKS158/r... Please spread the word!!!!

The reader @grantdraws

My cartoon for this weekend’s Guardian Books.

I envisage Evelyn de Morgan's seated, concentrating woman in The Love Potion (1903) as Leighton's indolent Flaming June (1895) awoken as a Medieval scholar if her books are any indication! Both are depicted as redheads (even brunette Jane Morris) clad in cascading folds of rich orange! Thoughts?

Agrigento is an incredible architectural site! Here is a miniscule me inadvertently colour co-ordinated with a gigantic fallen statue in the foreground. Brings to mind thoughts of our own smallness against the vastness of history - or maybe a Sicilian Ozymandias and fallen Empires!

Born on this auspicious day for music and science: Alfred Russel Wallace (1823), Elvis Presley (1935), Steven Hawking (1942), David Bowie (1947) - and my husband! Photo of the first in the list, not the last!

Here's hoping 2024 is filled with music, and nothing bugs us! Happy New Year!

Egyptomania & ghosts are two of my favourite subjects! Beneath the C19th Egyptian pyramid tomb in Rodney Street, Liverpool, sits William MacKenzie, who (legend has it) refused to lie down & be buried in the hope of cheating the devil out of his soul. His unquiet spirit now walks! #gothic #ghosts

A film centred on Dracula's assistant & exploring his psychology & entomophagy-fuelled superpowers made "Renfield" a must see for me. 🧛🪰But under-use of acting talent and over-use of gore made it a bore! It took me 3 attempts to get through it because I fell asleep twice!! Great idea badly executed.

Jan Sanders Van Hemessen's "Vanity" (1535) is unusual in depicting an angel with insectile wings. The artists is using the butterfly's associations with the soul which triumphs over the skull of death in the mirror. Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille. #GothicInsects

Revelling in Egyptological refs in Netflix's "The Fall of the House of Usher": scarab revivification icon used as Gold Bug branded beauty product; illicit trade in mummification tools exposing lack of ethics; collapsing hopes for immortality; a blank-eyed jewelled stare! #EdgarAllanPoe #egyptomania

Thrilled to see that the BBC Press Office has released details of the forthcoming adaptation of Conan Doyle’s LOT NO. 249, along with the first tantalising image from the production. I’m indebted to @jamescswanton.bsky.social for the advance notice! #Egyptology #Reception #Egyptomania

Today in #Gothic conference mode! I'm exploring Boothby's Pharos, Corelli's Ziska and Orientalist art in "The Consumer Becomes the Confused". Excited to be presenting on the same online panel as @c19thceleb.bsky.social. Hope the weird faeries of tech are feeling kindly disposed to us!

Saying hi for the first time on Bluesky with John Singer Sargent's portrait of Ellen Terry as Lady MacBeth (1889). So many of my research interests encapsulated in one magnificent piece of art - beetle wings; redhead; C19th painting etc. Took this in person at the Tate Britain! What a privilege!