Review of English Studies 67 (2016), 1011-12

Review of English Studies 66 (2015), 1001-3

Annals of Science 74 (2017), 335-6

Tennyson Research Bulletin 9 (2009), 233-47

The link between asimovian universe and Sherlock Holmes

The late Victorian era was imbued with progressive scientific reform and palpable anxiety regarding the future of the British empire. These two topics may seem distinct, but they find mutual expression in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, in which the soulless Count travels from Transylvania (literally, “beyond the forest”) and invades Engla…[Read more]

Critics often discuss works of fiction by condensing them into a few resonant scenes. We are so attached to this strategy, in fact, that we sometimes apply it to history itself: New Historicists explicitly theorize the anecdote as an appropriately literary representation of the past. But why should minutes and hours be more literary than months…[Read more]

From 1852 the Hôtel Drouot was the space where the French auctioneers (Commissaires-Priseurs) – who held a stately sanctioned monopoly – organized their auctions. By processing data from the art auction catalogue repertory by Frits Lugt and the extended version Art Sales Catalogues Online, it is possible to map the networks of art marketing at…[Read more]

Throughout historic developments, the publicly ascertained and published price of an artwork repeatedly served as a reference point for art theoretical discussion. Particular importance was attached to the auction sale price, since this financial evaluation of art was of such a public nature. While there is a long history of these ideas about the…[Read more]

Die französische Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts über das Pariser Auktionshaus kreist um das Thema des Betrugs. In Büchern der Historiker und Kunstkritiker Jules Champfleury, Victor-Charles Préseau und Henri Rochefort werden Fälschungen und betrügerische Expertise in Zusammenhang gebracht und Experten als Störung für die Abläufe des Kunstmar…[Read more]

Panel Description: Rising with the popularity of printed music, binders’ volumes became a particularly important and popular cultural artifact around 1830, flourishing into the 1870s and beyond. Since the beginning, these volumes have presented a conundrum to librarians: how does one deal with a compilation of different musical works? How can c…[Read more]

Panel Description: Rising with the popularity of printed music, binders’ volumes became a particularly important and popular cultural artifact around 1830, flourishing into the 1870s and beyond. Since the beginning, these volumes have presented a conundrum to librarians: how does one deal with a compilation of different musical works? How can c…[Read more]

This paper assesses nine prominent readings of the imperial context/content of Verdi’s ‘Aida’ and offers a new perspective more adequate to basic tensions in the work. Readings have ranged from the literal (imperial Europe here stages an archaeological “ancient Egypt”) to the metaphorical (“Egypt” here is any repressive government). Or–somew…[Read more]

Commentators often express disappointment that the music for the main characters in _Aida_ is not more distinctive, i.e., does not make much use of the exotic styles that mark the work’s ceremonial scenes and ballets. It has also been argued that exotic style-elements here are mostly confined to female, hence powerless, characters. Such…[Read more]

Preprint to appear in a special issue of Cultural Analytics on “Identity.” The article explores the paradox that the representation of gender in fiction became more flexible while the sheer balance of attention between fictional men and women was growing more unequal. We measure the rigidity of gendered roles by asking how easy it is to infer…[Read more]

Her Father’s Name (1876) is one of Marryat’s most radical and intriguing novels, featuring Leona Lacoste, a cross-dressing heroine, and Lucilla Evans, a textbook hysteric who falls in love with her. For centuries, the diagnosis of ‘hysteria’ was conveniently applied to any woman who exhibited transgressive behaviour, whether it be through sexual…[Read more]

Whereas many women writers were reticent on the issue of property, or vehemently opposed to improving the position of wives, Florence Marryat used her public platform to campaign for change. As such, her work forms an important contribution to our understanding of women and property in the nineteenth century. In this paper I discuss the ways in…[Read more]