@culturalcurrents.bsky.social
42 followers 49 following 9 posts
Research group in English at Loughborough University fascinated by 19th-20th century literature and culture. Lovers of all things weird, gothic, decadent and modernist: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/english/research/groups/cultural-currents/
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
On Wed 29 Oct, 16.15, join us for our first event of 2025-26, feat. two @lboroenglish.bsky.social legends:

1/1 Dr Anne-Marie Beller @braddonite.bsky.social
"We regret to learn that Miss Braddon is out of her mind": Insanity and the Lunatic Asylum in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Life and Fiction
Reposted
healthhumslboro.bsky.social
CFP 📣 Join us in Loughborough 📍 for a day of Sensation fiction and health humanities organised by our very own @braddonite.bsky.social. ✨ See post below for details 👇
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…
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
2/2 Followed by
Dr Nick Freeman
"Yesterday, When I was Mad": Arthur Symons and Writing from the Asylum

In collaboration with @healthhumslboro.bsky.social
Wed 29 Oct, 16.15-17.30 - hybrid, DM for Teams link.
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
On Wed 29 Oct, 16.15, join us for our first event of 2025-26, feat. two @lboroenglish.bsky.social legends:

1/1 Dr Anne-Marie Beller @braddonite.bsky.social
"We regret to learn that Miss Braddon is out of her mind": Insanity and the Lunatic Asylum in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Life and Fiction
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
One of our brilliant Doctoral Researchers Jill Walters has just published a journal article “All Things to All Men”: Decadence as Represented in Lionel Johnson’s Early Literary Journalism in a special issue on Late-Victorian Decadence - well done Jill!: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
Reposted
profsarahparker.bsky.social
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...
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
We've got some exciting talks and events lined up for the Autumn/Winter 2025 semester 🍂🎃🧣 - which is scarily close now! Stay tuned/give us a follow for updates...
Reposted
lboroenglish.bsky.social
If you're on LinkedIn, please follow our page: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/....
We've posted an update on @profsarahparker.bsky.social's 5-year project '100 Years of the Well of Loneliness', funded by the AHRC. PI is Prof Jana Funke and the other CIs are Dr Elizabeth English and Dr Hannah Roche
Reposted
moderniststudies.bsky.social
Exciting news! The CFP for the joint MSA/ BAMS conference in Loughborough next July is out now. Because this is a joint conference in the UK, there are a number of changes to note for MSA members, including the earlier deadline (Dec. 1) for papers, panels, workshops, etc. More details at the link!
The Modernist Studies Association is devoted to the study of the arts in their social, political, cultural, and intellectual contexts from the later nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. The o...
www.moderniststudies.org
Reposted
modernistudies.bsky.social
We're delighted to share that the CFP for the joint @modernistudies.bsky.social and @moderniststudies.bsky.social 2026 conference, Weird Modernisms, is now live!

1-4 July, Loughborough University @lborouniversity.bsky.social

More info here: moderniststudies.org/conference/MSA2026/CFP/
Image of 'The Empress' tarot card by Pamela Coleman Smith, depicting a figure with long hair, crown, and sceptre. Text: Weird Modernisms, BAMS/MSA 26, 1-4 July 2026, Loughborough University, UK.
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
Today!
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
Join us for our next event: @missybradshaw.bsky.social (Loyola, Chicago), “Think of me not as a hernia”: Tracing the Medicalized Subject in the Amy Lowell Letters Project, Tues 27 May, 16.00-17.30 (BST) hybrid @lboroenglish.bsky.social/online via Teams - give us a shout and we'll DM the Teams link
Amy Lowell clutching her head, next to a reading lamp
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
Join us for our next event: @missybradshaw.bsky.social (Loyola, Chicago), “Think of me not as a hernia”: Tracing the Medicalized Subject in the Amy Lowell Letters Project, Tues 27 May, 16.00-17.30 (BST) hybrid @lboroenglish.bsky.social/online via Teams - give us a shout and we'll DM the Teams link
Amy Lowell clutching her head, next to a reading lamp
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
Thanks to all who attended our Symposium on Periodisation, Generations and the Gaps Between yesterday - especially our fantastic speakers!
lboroenglish.bsky.social
We held our ‘Periodisation, Generations, and the Gaps Between’ symposium this afternoon. Organised by @jadefrench.bsky.social and @drsarahparker.bsky.social, other speakers were @amigonidavid.bsky.social, Fatima Borrmann, @helenkingstone.bsky.social, & Helen Small. A wonderful event! 👏👏👏
Reposted
wvmierlo.bsky.social
The Loughborough Editing and Textual Scholarship research group is hosting a seminar with the brilliant Bryony Randall from the University of Glasgow's Textual Editing Lab on 14 May at 4pm. If you like to join us in person or online, please DM me for details.

#lets #editing #textualscholarship
lboroenglish.bsky.social
#DidYouKnow that we run four lively research groups within English: @culturalcurrents.bsky.social, the Contemporary, @healthhumslboro.bsky.social, and Editing and Textual Scholarship. All hold research events, including regular seminars with guest speakers, which are usually hybrid and open to all.
Reposted
lboroenglish.bsky.social
#DidYouKnow that we run four lively research groups within English: @culturalcurrents.bsky.social, the Contemporary, @healthhumslboro.bsky.social, and Editing and Textual Scholarship. All hold research events, including regular seminars with guest speakers, which are usually hybrid and open to all.
Reposted
profsarahparker.bsky.social
You can now register for the Amy Lowell and Her Imagist Networks Symposium, taking place in London on Fri 23 May:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/amy-lowell...

Please share and promote to your modernist networks!
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
Here's the programme for our free hybrid Symposium on
Periodisation, Generations, and the Gaps Between, Wed 7 May, 1-5pm - register here: www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias...
Reposted
lboroenglish.bsky.social
Our Health Humanities colleagues shared some of their research with the VC today, including transcribing Victorian medical archives, cycles of care from the Victorian asylum to post-war care homes, 17C midwifery practices, and early modern plague treatments (a sponge with vinegar on the nose!)
culturalcurrents.bsky.social
Our next event is a hybrid presentation from Alice Staveley (Stanford),'Taking Woolf’s Measure: Experiments in Data Visualizing Virginia Woolf’s Archives' on Wed 26 Feb, 16.00-17.15 GMT. Give @drsarahparker.bsky.social a shout if you'd like the Teams link!
Reposted