Dr Vic Clarke
@vjctorianist
By day: literary historian and editor for hire. By night: historian and enthusiast of Chartism, 19thC British writing and politics, sausage rolls, and women's, workers', queer and trans rights ✊ she/her, views own drvicclarke.co.uk
Reflecting on a wonderful three days at #RSVP2026 @rs4vp.org. It's a scholarly community that is welcoming and collegial, and devoted to supporting scholarship at all levels and from all different paths. My heart is full and my brain is buzzing after needing out with friends old and new.
Genawi: Illustrations from Punch satirise fast food, with importer tinned meat intruding on the formal, ritualised domestic mealtimes. Confronts advertisements of 'food on the move' becoming increasingly prevalent both in urban streets and periodicals.
Barbara Korte on representations of working class travel in The British Workman, a penny broadsheet monthly magazine launched in 1850. Despite being for the working classes, it was often patronising to it's working-class readers. Illustrations used to bridge gap between levels of literacy.
Brett-Demetre: Radical and working-class including Reynolds and North Briton offered dissent. Argued that working-classes disproportionately affected, losing work on top of existing 'fast days' through poverty. Reynolds argued wealthy 'lazy and luxurious sinners' enjoy the novelty of fast.
Pires: Dublin's Farmer's Gazette in 1846 shoes scones as being made from 'peameal and oatmeal rolled thin and cooked on the griddle', but other adaptations and publications of 'Irish scones' opt for white cornmeal. How do variations suggest regional and national identity in recipes?
Reading for fun for the first time in AGES at the beach and it is bliss.
Amidst the doom and gloom of everything in the industry and the struggle of being alive in the year 2026, I was able to pluck roses from our own garden to put in a vase. After years of renting and not having a garden, it's such a joy.
Holidaying in Paris is mostly me earnestly trying to practice my french, and my partner's Yorkshire accent making it very clear to every waiter that we want large beers, not small beers.
Extremely on holiday. Thank you Paris for having a Brazilian beach bar next to your antiques market.
Spent this Valentine's day at the John Atkinson Grimshaw show at @leedsartgallery.bsky.social. I'm a sucker for his moonscapes to begin with but loved this exhibition and the relationship he had to the city. Maybe another research project for the never-ending list...
Other professional projects are ongoing and will be shared in due course, but recent personal news... I now also have my wedding to plan!
Me at 2pm on the second day back at work: thinking is too hard, I can't do it, brain hurt Me at 8pm on the second day back at work: eating dinner on the sofa, glued to the new series of #AHouseThroughTime
Would I recommend getting the keys to your first home in week 1 of term; spending 6 weeks frantically renovating, selling furniture, and moving; and then spending 5 weeks doing teaching prep in an office that has exposed brick gaps from old crappy plaster in? Absolutely not! Happy end of term to us!
Merry Christmas, one and all (esp. historians of radicalism and periodicals)!
Happy Halloween! I found a 30 year old newspaper buried in our new house which showed how much things used to cost and experienced true horror at the world around me!
Update: eyes full of fine art, bag full of canelés, and it turns out that in a galetterie you can get a two course dinner with wine for €20. Let's hope I can grab an eclair café in the airport for my petit déjeuner du vol. Vive la France!
Had an amazing day supporting English studies agrégation students in Bordeaux today - what a delight to talk about British social movements and think about their importance's in pedagogical practice. If only we did more of this on the other side of the channel!
A fab BHM lecture from @oliviawyatt1999.bsky.social on the Chapeltown Bonfire night incident of 1975. Wyatt situates elder Black women's activism on behalf of the Black youths on trial as part of caregiving in the community. More non-London Black history!!!
Week two of home ownership: for when a flagpole in the garden isn't enough
Spent this morning's seminars talking to my first years about close reading and figurative language, and thought I'd do a bit about semiotics and theory. Ended up talking A LOT about traffic lights. Perhaps driving theory next term?
Some news: I'm back teaching at the School of English at Leeds this term, and we bought a house with these treasures in the attic! Freelance clients new and old, don't fear - I'm still available for your research, writing, and copy-editing needs.
I've spent the last few days in the Austrian alps with a bunch of my brilliant friends for a wedding, and even if I never work in academia again, studying gave me an amazing international community of friends. For that alone we should be protecting HE.
Big thanks to @sslh.bsky.social for a cracking #ChartismDay in Huddersfield! My brain and heart are full thanks to the rich papers, show and tell sessions, and Chartist biographies. The Charter and something more!
If you're in or near #Halifax, I wholeheartedly recommend seeing the Costume Drama exhibition at #bankfieldmuseum. My mum was SO excited to see the costumes from Bridgerton and Downton Abbey, I don't think she stopped grinning the whole time ❤️
Turns out that Bradford, IL is very different to Bradford, West Yorkshire...
Thank you to all the brilliant organisers, panellists, and friends who made #RSVP2025 such a nourishing, collegial, and stimulating few days. My heart, brain, and stomach are so full!
The advertising wrapper of Werner's Magazine features many products using the election teacher Delsarte's name - from Sloper's School of Oratory to corsets claiming to aid speech! Werner's in particular covered speech therapy and disorders. #RSVP2025 #VoicesVisions
Enjoying Prof Jason Camelot's Wolff lecture on voice, sound, and elocution in the 19thC American periodical press. Periodicals were serialised textbooks for oratory schools and election performances, as correspondence courses. But why is Chicago seemingly the hub for public speakers? #RSVP2025
Fascinating work from Ge Tang on photography of Chinese gold labourers in the journal South Africa. The 'modernity' of photography is used as a PR strategy to mask the slave-like conditions of indentured labourers in the Transvaal. #RSVP2025 #VoicesVisions