Caroline Arscott
@carscott.bsky.social
3.3K followers 1.4K following 140 posts
Art historian, Courtauld Emeritus Professor. Victorian art. Botany, physiology, physics, communications technology and Victorian aesthetics. Whistler, Poynter, Moore, Burne-Jones and William Morris.
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Reposted by Caroline Arscott
juliaditter.bsky.social
📢CFP -- "Mediating Medicine: Health and Illness in the Victorian Age", 5 December 2025, Online Workshop

Send us your proposals for 15min papers or 5min flashlight talks by 30 Sept!⚕️💉👨‍⚕️🚑📖📰

PGR, ERC & NeoVictorian contributions very welcome 🫶

#MedHum #19Century #Victorian

shorturl.at/ePhU5
Mediating Medicine CfP_final.pdf
cloud.uni-konstanz - creative.together
shorturl.at
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
claregs.bsky.social
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing some of my @leverhulme.ac.uk research, discussing ‘The British Freethought Movement and Periodical Form’ and the affordances of periodicals for Victorian radicals. Join us at Senate House at 6pm!
claregs.bsky.social
I’m delighted to be part of this term’s London 19th Century Studies Seminar line up, and on a periodicals panel with @andrewkingc19.bsky.social no less! Join us at Senate House on Tues 14 Oct - all welcome!
Hark! The wild west wind rattles yonder casement, and autumn's own breath chills the under-insulated pedestrian trudging the pavement outside. These things betoken the return of hats and overcoats, umbrellas and germs, and of course students... but also the London 19th Century Studies Seminar! Please find the programme below, lovingly curated by myself, Mary Shannon and Briony Wickes. All events will be held from 6pm to 8pm in Room 243 at Senate House.
14th October: Andrew King (Greenwich),
"Periodicals and the Materiality of Marketing", and Clare Stainthorp (Royal College of Art),
"The British Freethought Movement and
Periodical Form".
25th November: Kate Hext (Exeter) and Catherine Maxwell (QMUL) on Decadent
Flowers and Gardens.
9th December: Peter Bryden (Exeter) and Robert Hampson (RHUL) on New Perspectives on Late Victorian Art.
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
dbenjw.bsky.social
“Crystal Forms: A Victorian Aesthetics of Accident” is out in JVC!

I read James/Cecilia Glaisher’s snow-crystal images as a case study in accidental aesthetics—unsettling familiar stories about representation, mechanical objectivity, and lookalike forms in science + art ❄️❄️❄️

doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...
Screenshot of article abstract. Text:

Abstract. This essay uses the snow-crystal studies of the meteorologist James Glaisher and his wife, the illustrator-photographer Cecilia Glaisher, as a case study to describe a nineteenth-century aesthetics of accident, to assess its limits, and to draw wider lessons for the history of scientific and artistic representation. The argument is in two parts. The first examines the Glaishers’ accounts and images of snow-crystal morphology across a range of print media, from scientific periodicals to art journals. I argue that they pivoted from an empirical and taxonomic inquiry toward an aesthetics of design, developing representational strategies that emphasized symmetry. The latter part of the argument identifies two lessons we can draw from this case study. First, I complicate a narrative in the history of science that takes snow-crystals as exemplary of a nineteenth-century epistemic shift in styles of representation, from ‘truth to nature’ in hand-drawn images to ‘mechanical objectivity’ in photomicrography. The Glaishers’ case, I suggest, confounds this narrative of the ascendancy of mechanical reproductive techniques. Second, I contend that these images have an aesthetic kinship with projects of iterative representation in twentieth-century art, and anticipate conundrums about ‘pseudomorphism’. The Glaishers’ snow-crystals offer a compelling way to talk about quasi-identical forms in science and art, not so much by discriminating among them than by accommodating, even celebrating, the variety of causal stories and contexts that surround them. Their project reveals a nascent aesthetics of accident in the Victorian era whose legacy can be traced in, and help us understand, later representational forms. Woodcut engraving of a snow-crystal with symmetrical laminae, in white lines on a solid ox-blood red background. Woodcut engraving of two identical snow-crystals superimposed, in white on a solid dark green background, with a smaller cross-section showing the structure of the double crystal at lower left. Woodcut engraving of a snow-crystal with complex symmetrical needles and short laminae, in white lines on a solid Prussian blue background.
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
rs4vp.org
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 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…
buff.ly
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
libraryaac.bsky.social
#CallforPapers #CfP on #VictorianLiterature #SensationFiction & the #HealthHumanities
vpfa.bsky.social
🚨Call for Papers!
❓Sensation Fiction and the Health Humanities: A VPFA Study Day
🗺️Loughborough University
📅27 March 2026
💷 FREE
For full CfP: victorianpopularfiction.org/studyday/for...
Contact the organiser Anne-Marie Beller (@braddonite.bsky.social) at [email protected] for more information
Mentally ill patients dancing at a ball at Somerset County Asylum. Process
print after a lithograph by K. Drake, ca. 1850/1855.
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xswz3swa
CFP: Sensation Fiction and the Health Humanities
A VPFA Study Day
Loughborough University, 27 March 2026

The Health Humanities and Victorian popular fiction intersect in revealing ways, offering insights into how 19th-century literature shaped and reflected contemporary understandings of health, illness, and the body. Popular narratives not only mirrored anxieties surrounding public health and medical progress but also contributed to shaping public perceptions of health and healing. Health Humanities approaches re-examine these texts to uncover how cultural narratives and literary representations influenced attitudes toward physical and mental well-being, gendered experiences of illness, and the ethics of care in an age of rapid scientific change.

Health Humanities is a particularly useful approach to sensation fiction because it illuminates the ways in which these emotionally charged, often morally ambiguous narratives explore and interrogate concepts of the body, illness, and mental health. Sensation fiction, with its focus on secrets, trauma, nervous disorders, and abnormal psychological states, frequently dramatizes the anxieties of Victorian society surrounding health, gender, and identity. By applying the lens of Health Humanities, scholars can uncover how these texts reflect and shape contemporary medical discourse. Interdisciplinary approaches also highlight how sensation fiction critiques institutional medicine, domestic care practices, and the pathologization of women’s experiences. Ultimately, Health Humanities allows us to see sensation fiction not just as entertainment, but as a culturally significant form that negotiates the meanings of illness, morality, and human vulnerability in a rapidly changing world.

20-minute papers are invited on any aspect of the health humanities and sensation fiction. Topics may include, but are not limited to the following:

•	Madness, Hysteria, and the Sensation Heroine
•	The Role of Doctors and Medical Authority in Se…
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
vicmanch.bsky.social
Quick response from the DNB; they are convinced. The previously unknown author of *Woman's Mission* (1839), key text of Victorian 'separate spheres' ideologies, was Sarah Lewis (1807-1878), who conducted a high class boarding school for girls in Putney, apparently from the later 1830s to the 1860s.
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
ecrfrenchart.bsky.social
Our first Research Forum will come from the Network's own Dr. Allison Perelman. She will present on her recently defened thesis on The Domestic Salon-Studios of Berthe Morisot and Odilon Redon. Join us on Thursday 20 November here: www.ecrfrenchart.com/research-for...
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
forarthistory.org.uk
We are currently inviting submissions for sessions for the conference. This invitation is open to both members and non-members - more information on our website.

Deadline for submissions: 2 November 2025

Submit your proposal: forarthistory.org.uk/events/cfp-a...
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
norwichprintmuseum.bsky.social
We will have a stall at the Mannington Book Bash this Saturday and Sunday. Come along and print a keepsake on one of our Jabez Francis parlour presses ...

www.manningtonbookbash.co.uk
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
lilcrowther.bsky.social
If you need a good spot for a field trip or your students want internships we would be delighted to hear from you at the Art Gallery & Museum in Leamington! Lots of exciting and relevant work coming up in our programme over the next few years.
carscott.bsky.social
Always useful to get a reminder or a notice of a new scheme.
leverhulme.ac.uk
If you would like to receive details of scheme opening dates, upcoming deadlines, advance notice of changes to award criteria, details of recent publications and other relevant updates directly in your inbox, then sign up for the Trust's Funding Bulletin: eepurl.com/dxsdz1
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
forarthistory.org.uk
AAH Key Event, part of Art History Festival 2025, happening today:

🌎Art Nouveau and International Naturalism
📆Mon 15 Sept, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Leading art nouveau expert, Paul Greenhalgh, examines the relationship between Art Nouveau and nature – a key theme in his new book ⬇️
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
claregs.bsky.social
Some of Julia Wedgwood’s key interests were:
✒️ relationship between science and religion
✒️ morality and world civilisations
✒️ ways of understanding nature, free will, and spirit
✒️ how fiction illuminates historical upheavals in thought
✒️ feminism
✒️ animal welfare

www.juliawedgwood.org
The Julia Wedgwood Site | Julia Wedgwood philosopher
Explore the life and writings of Julia Wedgwood, a Victorian philosopher, critic, and member of Darwin’s circle, with resources, research materials, and her own writings.
www.juliawedgwood.org
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
emilyjlm.bsky.social
This is a brilliant opportunity. Happy to answer any questions if anyone is interested in applying!
rs4vp.org
💼 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...
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.
rs4vp.org
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
socialhistsoc.bsky.social
📢 Reminder: the deadline for the Social History Society Small Grants is coming up soon!

💷 Up to £1000 available to support research, events & activities in social & cultural history

🗓️ Apply by 1 October for events Dec–Apr
🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/funding/smal...
✨Apply today!
Small Grants
The Social History Society maintains a Small Grants Fund to support research, events and activities by members of the Society. We give priority to activities and research that would otherwise remai…
socialhistory.org.uk
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
museeorsay.bsky.social
Exposition «John Singer Sargent. Éblouir Paris» à partir du mardi 23 septembre au musée d'Orsay.

🎟️ Réservez dès maintenant votre billet 👉 bit.ly/SargentParis
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
maxwellmuseums.bsky.social
🏛️ a global competition to design a new wing will be launched tomorrow

the project — expected to cost £400m — has already secured £375m in donations, including two single £150m gifts

these are some of the biggest donations ever given to an art museum anywhere in the world
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
britishacademy.bsky.social
The BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants scheme is now open for applications. This opportunity allows postdoctoral – or equivalent – scholars in the humanities and social sciences to apply for funding to support their research projects. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3K4kEyA
White banner with an image of a researcher focused on his work. The words 'BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants' are written on the right-hand side
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
historyworkshop.org.uk
📣 Call for participants 📣

Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice? If so, we would love to hear from you!

Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.
Green and red poster with the History Workshop logo and a title which reads ‘Can you help us?’ Underneath the title some text reads: This year our partner History Workshop Journal is celebrating the publication of its 100th issue. If you have ever used any HWJ articles in your teaching practice we would love to hear from you! Please let us know by emailing hwoeditors@historyworkshop.org
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
ekaterinaheath.bsky.social
1/8 Excited to share my review of Rosalind Blakesley’s "Women Artists in the Reign of Catherine the Great" in the latest issue of Slavonic & East European Review. Link - muse.jhu.edu/pub/427/arti...
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
ssnci.bsky.social
Deadline tomorrow (1 Sept)!
ssnci.bsky.social
The SSNCI @ssnci.bsky.social is pleased to announce
its annual essay prize!! This prize aims to highlight the high quality research of an ECR or someone in a profession outside of the academy. Please spread widely!
carscott.bsky.social
📌
ryancordell.org
There it is—not in 1998, but in 1890—the term "skeuomorph" coined by H. Colley March in the _Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society_ to name "the forms of ornament demonstrably derived from structure" ht @cjfrieman.bsky.social

archive.org/details/tran...
Reposted by Caroline Arscott
mlobelart.bsky.social
My department at Hunter College, which combines studio art & art history, has just posted a job listing for an assistant professor of ceramics. Please share widely, thanks! cuny.jobs/new-york-ny/...
Jobs | City University of New York
cuny.jobs