Eighteenth-Century Study Day, Wantage, Oxfordshire

By Frances Long On 7 January, a large proportion of CECS descended on the Vale and Downland Museum, Oxfordshire, to host an Eighteenth-Century Study Day for local sixth-form students. Six postgraduate speakers, of whom five were from York, were joined by our own Joanna de Groot as keynote speaker. The collaboration was the result of…

Eighteenth Century Fun for all the Family!

Last week, several CECS postgraduate students took part in the Fringe Family Fun Festival as part of York’s Festival of Ideas, 2018. Aimed at children aged up to eleven, the Family Fringe offers a series of activities that are inspired by research being undertaken by staff and students in the Humanities Research Centre (HRC). This…

Imagining the Impossible: Festival of (Eighteenth-Century) Ideas

Several CECS members will be running events across York next month as part of the Festival of Ideas. The Festival takes place each year in June, and for 2018 has the theme of “Imagining the Impossible”. Taking this as inspiration, we’ve come up with a series of events that explore other worlds, lead participants on…

Workshop: “Fictional ‘Facts’: Pirate Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Archive”

Last week, we were delighted to have the privilege of hosting Associate Professor Manushag N. Powell, from Purdue University. Powell offered us a two-day insight into the world of eighteenth-century pirates. On the first day of her visit, she led a workshop for our postgraduate students on using archival materials, and gave a paper entitled ‘Mapping…

Workshop: “So You Want to Submit a Journal Article!”

We were delighted to have the privilege of hosting Dr. Eugenia Zuroski, editor-in-chief of Eighteenth-Century Fiction and Associate Professor of English at McMaster University,  earlier this term. Following a fascinating and vibrant paper on 'The Cat-Arion of Strawberry Hill: Bentley’s Illustrations for Gray’s Poem about the Death of Walpole's Cat', Eugenia ran a workshop on journal publication…

Waterloo 200 Public lectures at York

The first in this series of public lectures organised by Catriona Kennedy for CECS was held on Tuesday evening to a packed room of nearly 100 people. Many thanks to Professor Alan Forrest, who gave a wonderful paper,  'Waterloo, France and the Napoleonic Legend', to a very appreciative York  audience. The next lecture in the series…

John Brewer’s visit to CECS

Sarah Goldsmith On the 24-25th February, CECS and the Department of History had the privilege of hosting Professor John Brewer for two days. On Tuesday night, speaking to a packed room of staff, postgrads and even some stray undergrads, John gave a paper on his latest research project: ‘Sublime Tourism, Neapolitan Science and Counter-Revolution: Vesuvius…

‘Electrick Communication everywhere’

Jenny Wilkes As part of the York Festival of Ideas, last week CECS held a pair of public lectures titled “‘Electrick communication everywhere’: Order and chaos in the arts and sciences”. The lectures explored connections between the arts and sciences in the Romantic period. The first lecture was 'Transpennine Enlightenment: The collision of mind with…

Celebrity Beasts

I’ve just got back from an interesting seminar at the University of Oxford on the subject of celebrity animals! The seminar forms part of a wider project of cultures of celebrity in the eighteenth century and beyond (http://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/celebrity-beasts-1738-1826). My paper focused on the tragic case of Chunee, who was arguably Britain’s first ‘celebrity’ elephant. Here’s…

Maureen McClane at CECs

We were lucky enough to have Maureen McClane at CECs on Wednesday night. She gave a wonderful talk on ballads, mediality, and world literature, with very interesting things to say about how the local was turned into the global by the work of late eighteenth-century antiquarians And she was very funny too! But perhaps best…

British Library Event on the Royal Literary Fund

  Professor Jon Mee speaker at forthcoming Royal Literary Fund event at the British Library http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event159778.html

Michael Eaton on the Good Humour Club

Last week we were lucky enough at CECs to have the writer Michael Eaton speak to us about his recent dramatisation of the 'Good Humour Club' minute book. His talk took us into the heart of what is at stake in historical adaptation, but also opened up really interesting issues in relation to eighteenth-century sociability…

Michael Eaton at CECS

Not to be missed! Michael Eaton at the King's Manor next Wednesday. Michael Eaton and the Good Humour Club Wednesday 26 February 2014, 7.00pm Speaker: Professor Michael Eaton LECTURE: ‘The Good Humour Club: Imagining the Membership' 7.00pm in K/133 ‘Tonight, for your delight, entertainment and edification, a number of gentlemen are gathering in Sunton’s Coffee-house for…

Peter Sabor at CECS

CECS Research Seminar 28 January 2014  Professor Peter Sabor (McGill) ‘Additional Letters of Frances Burney, 1791-1840’   On Tuesday 28 January, CECS was delighted to welcome Professor Peter Sabor, Director of the Burney Centre at McGill University, to our research seminar series. Peter was speaking about his experiences editing the Additional Letters of Frances Burney, 1791-1840.…