Jim Mussell

We’re excited in Liverpool to hear that LJMU will be hosting the fab @bavs-uk.bsky.social conf in July. I can’t wait to see Victorian scholars treading the corridors of my historic c19th building. Well done to @drhorrocks.bsky.social for getting this off the ground! Now to dust of my organisers hat…

Yorkshire really is a lovely place

Holden Lecture: Tickets and trifles: ephemeral print and Restoration England

Don't miss this year's Holden Lecture by Prof Jason Peacey at Senate House Library, University of London, 30 October at 6PM. It's inspired by Senate House Library's Spineless Wonders Exhibition. 1/2 @uclhistory.bsky.social

Join us for this special online event that brings together a panel from two universitiess, separated by the Atlantic Ocean while joined by a common history. We’ll hear from academics and archivists with an interest Black history and how libraries and archives support these histories 👇

This coming Sunday, three historic performances of the late, great Tony Harrison's masterpiece "v." in the Leeds graveyard where it's set. I'm speaking before the final reading. Please come. slunglow.org/v-a-homecomi...
@lrb.co.uk
@richardburgon.bsky.social

The Linda H. Peterson Fellowship – RSVP The Linda H. Peterson Fellowship was named after the widely influential Yale professor and longtime RSVP Board member and Vice President, Linda Peterson. The purpose of the Peterson Fellowship is to…

Peterson Fellowships open today! Named for Yale professor and our dear friend, Linda H. Peterson, the Peterson Fellowship is designed to support one scholar for four full-time months conducting research focused on the British periodical press of long #19thC. Applications due Nov. 15!

The deadline for application is Oct 15. If you or somebody you know works on periodicals and attribution research, do apply (or spread the word).

Many thanks to everyone who's shared and followed this (unexpectedly lengthy) walk-in-progress over the past few days. It's much appreciated. The full thread (128 posts) is below.

Congratulations Matthew!

The deadline for Curran Fellowships is fast approaching: Oct 15 (letters due a week later). Who doesn't want money for travel & research? So much exciting work to do on British/empire periodicals of the long 19th c!

Publication day is October 2nd tomorrow. Launch tonight for the first day of the London Month of the Dead at Highgate Cemetery!

Leeds Street Scene, 1974, painting by Stuart Walton. #NorthernArt

Michael Field in Context (Cambridge University Press) is out today! I'm so excited that this volume is finally out in the world. It features 35 chapters on so many different aspects of Michael Field's lives and work. Find out more/order for your library here: www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

The journal Victorians (formerly The Victorian Newsletter) is out, with new format and new editor Kristen Pond, featuring a forum on amateurism and professionalization in science with intro by @aktange.bsky.social. Some terrific work here, and all is Open Access. muse.jhu.edu/issue/55573 #C19th

Rue Rue Jo Cox, Députée Britannique, a street sign in Burgundy reads, Assassinée pour ses convictions. No British road is named after her, I found on returning home, for fear it could have proved controversial. I remembered in Shakespeare rue even for ruth, called 'herb of grace' because it was used in exorcisms, by the angel to clean Adam's eyes, and Gulliver back home for his nose against the smell of his countrymen.

I think about this poem by Ian Duhig — about Jo Cox, the Labour MP assassinated by a man shouting ‘Britain first’ — every day at the moment. No other contemporary poet has looked so clearly at the political reality of the far right as a minority who must always be appeased

Feels like a real sign of decline that UK HE leaders increasingly talk about research as a de-facto national command economy rather than an internationalised one where collaborations might emerge organically and across borders. Seems like a real turn compared to the rhetoric a decade ago.

My new book is out in November. Ten years of research.

We have a wonderful line up of keynote speakers for RSVP-Dublin:
KATHERINE BODE (Australian National University) will deliver the Wolff keynote and ANDREW LEWIS and TEJA VARMA PUSAPATI will be in conversation for the Colby keynote!
And you too can be there - submit a proposal by Nov 1.

Lead the Curran Index as Our New Editor – RSVP RSVP seeks a new Editor or Editors to lead the Curran Index! Applications should be sent to VP Alison Chapman by October 15.

💼 We're hiring! RSVP seeks a new Editor or pair of Co-Editors to lead the Curran Index into its next phase. Many many thanks to our outgoing Editors, @emilyjlm.bsky.social+Lars Atkin for their dedication to this ongoing DH project. Applications due 15 October! rs4vp.org/curran-edito...

Kelli Anderson's made some custom paper hand gadgets for the Cooper Hewitt event next Wednesday! (See the hand flick through index cards below! 👇)

RSVP Annual Conference – RSVP The nineteenth century was marked by unprecedented migration, as people moved to urban centers; were forcibly or semi-forcibly relocated; and emigrated to escape war, famine, economic instability, or…

✨ It's official! We're now accepting proposals for #RSVP2026, "Movements and Migrations"! We invite scholars to examine the relationship between periodicals, migrations, and movements for our 2026 conference in Dublin. Full CFP and more details on our main website.

We are delighted to share the exciting news that the CFP for the @moderniststudies.bsky.social 2026 conference - next year called Weird Modernisms - jointly held with @modernistudies.bsky.social at @lborouniversity.bsky.social is now live! More info here: moderniststudies.org/conference/MSA2026/CFP/

"M.A.L" My anthology of the writing of Madeline Alberta Linford, the first woman on the editorial board of the Manchester Guardian. Between 1913 and 1953 she wrote hundreds of book, theatre and film reviews as well as articles on many other subjects www.lulu.com/account/proj...

The Radical Act behind your local library: Celebrating 175 years of public libraries This post was written by Jenny Pearce, Senior Marketing Manager for LibraryOn at the British Library. 2025 sees the 175th anniversary of the Public Library Act 1850. The Act was an initial step in pro...

The Radical Act behind your local library: Celebrating 175 years of public libraries blogs.bl.uk/thenewsroom/...

HK Ghost Signs project launches interactive map The Hong Kong Ghost Signs project has invited members of the public to contribute to their collection on their new interactive online map.

The Hong Kong Ghost Signs project has invited members of the public to contribute to their collection on their new interactive online map. In full: buff.ly/8kJnUs1

Please help me share the CFP for this Literature Compass Special Issue dedicated to the work of Simon J James and covering key Victorian and Edwardian writers like H. G. Wells, George Gissing, Dickens, Wilde, George Du Maurier, and Conan-Doyle on behalf of Hadas Elber-Aviram.

Associate Professor/Professor in Cambridge Digital Humanities at University of Cambridge An academic position as a Associate Professor/Professor in Cambridge Digital Humanities is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunit...

We're hiring an Associate Professor/Professor at Cambridge Digital Humanities. Specialisms include Digital History/Mapping, Critical Data Studies, Archive and Memory Studies, Digital Media Arts, Environmental Humanities, AI/Digital Visual Culture.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOD837/a...

Celebrating the birth (#OTD in 1862) of the great manuscript cataloguer & ghost story writer M. R. James with this new acquisition for my shelves: James’s own copy of ‘Checkmate’ (London, c. 1890) by Sheridan Lefanu (his favourite writer of ghost stories). It’s even got a few scribbles inside!

Pretty thoroughly depressing to live in a country where big, important institutions — like universities, the BBC, the Labour party — seem only ever to be run by people who seem to really dislike them.

Lots of lovely tributes on IG if you’re over there