Tara MacDonald
@tara-macdonald.bsky.social
Director of the Centre for Feminist Research; Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Lethbridge, Canada.
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
Reminder: The extended deadline to submit your proposal for VSAWC 2026 is in five days!
Had a busy week? You're in luck! The deadline to submit your proposals to present at our May 2026 conference on Victorian Trade as been extended to December 15th! Please go to vsawc.org/events/ for more details!
VSAWC Conference 2026 – Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada
vsawc.org
December 11, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reminder: The extended deadline to submit your proposal for VSAWC 2026 is in five days!
My office view is really stunning. Pre and post snow!
November 26, 2025 at 5:09 AM
My office view is really stunning. Pre and post snow!
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
hello Ottawa! I am giving this talk tomorrow please come!
+ thank you @kqandrews.bsky.social for inviting me!
+ thank you @kqandrews.bsky.social for inviting me!
November 13, 2025 at 7:33 PM
hello Ottawa! I am giving this talk tomorrow please come!
+ thank you @kqandrews.bsky.social for inviting me!
+ thank you @kqandrews.bsky.social for inviting me!
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
Happy to have this new piece out in @publicbooks.bsky.social today about political #gaslighting, a lost version of the play #Gaslight, and how the latter can help us reframe the way we think about and push back against the former!
In 2023, @noragilbert.bsky.social uncovered a synopsis of a lost version of "Gaslight" in the MGM archives. This version's different ending is a lesson in radical solidarity—and, Gilbert argues, it should change the way we think of "gaslighting" as a term.
The Lost Ending of “Gaslight” That You Didn’t Know You Needed - Public Books
The only way to really understand the term is to sit down and watch the harrowing psychological film from which it got its name.
www.publicbooks.org
October 28, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Happy to have this new piece out in @publicbooks.bsky.social today about political #gaslighting, a lost version of the play #Gaslight, and how the latter can help us reframe the way we think about and push back against the former!
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
Want to attend NAVSA 2025: Aftermaths but can't make it to DC? Want MORE brilliant Victorianist scholarship than you can get at the in-person event? The NAVSA 2025 DIGITAL PRESESSION is free and open to all —registration required for security
(thread of papers below)
(thread of papers below)
#NAVSA2025 is running special digital panels on Fri, Nov 7 and Sat Nov 8! Registration is FREE but required: tinyurl.com/hy2zhe2y
NAVSA 2025: Aftermaths // Digital Pre-Session Registration
Attendance at the NAVSA 2025 digital pre-sessions is free but you must register in order to receive zoom links for both dates (Friday, November 7th and Saturday, November 8th). Please register if you ...
tinyurl.com
October 3, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Want to attend NAVSA 2025: Aftermaths but can't make it to DC? Want MORE brilliant Victorianist scholarship than you can get at the in-person event? The NAVSA 2025 DIGITAL PRESESSION is free and open to all —registration required for security
(thread of papers below)
(thread of papers below)
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
Our CFP for our May 2026 conference is live! Please see the attachment or the thread for details about our upcoming conference on VICTORIAN TRADE
September 26, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Our CFP for our May 2026 conference is live! Please see the attachment or the thread for details about our upcoming conference on VICTORIAN TRADE
We launched the Centre for Feminist Research to a packed room of colleagues, students, and friends this morning. A good day! www.ulethbridge.ca/unews/articl...
University launches Centre for Feminist Research | UNews
www.ulethbridge.ca
September 13, 2025 at 1:44 AM
We launched the Centre for Feminist Research to a packed room of colleagues, students, and friends this morning. A good day! www.ulethbridge.ca/unews/articl...
Cover image for our new book! The essays are really phenomenal and the topic is, sadly, just as urgent today. Doesn’t that Bergman expression sum up a lot?! Available March 2026!
August 20, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Cover image for our new book! The essays are really phenomenal and the topic is, sadly, just as urgent today. Doesn’t that Bergman expression sum up a lot?! Available March 2026!
I love this so much!
Here you go! I'll write some new ones for this semester too. They loved them. The "read without your phone or screens in the room" was a revelation, and many of them decided to keep doing it. They had NO IDEA (& were horrified) how often they interrupt themselves to look at a phone for no reason.
![Reading Scenario Experiments. This series of prompts is designed to get you thinking about how the setting for reading affects concentration, comprehension, and even the existential experience of reading. Every week, one of the following prompts will appear on the syllabus. I encourage you to try all of them that you are able. How does a different reading setting affect your mood? Your receptiveness to the prose? Your pleasure or difficulty reading? What are the particular impacts of changing your lighting or surroundings? What do you notice about yourself and about the work you are reading during this experiment?
1. read by candlelight (use a small lamp in dorms where no candles are allowed!)
2. read for one hour without checking any devices, answering texts, etc.
3. walk out into nature (climb a tree, sit on a rock, grab a spot in a hammock) and read
4. host a reading night with friends & food (sit in companionable silence, reading without chatting)
5. read aloud a chapter to someone else
6. climb into bed at night and read by flashlight under the covers for at least 30 minutes, as if you’ve already been told “lights out” as a kid
7. reread a chapter and see what new things you notice the second time through
8. change your ambient-noise level: add music if you normally read in the quiet; or read without music if you are normally a music-listener
9. read with a sketchpad at hand and sketch scenes, characters, or other elements from the story
10. practice focused listening: have someone read to you
11. make yourself a special, fancy snack on a real plate to nibble while eating: pay attention to the cooking or arranging or choosing of ingredients to make it especially appetizing first
12. make tea (even if you’re not usually a tea drinker), and read and sip
13. invent a new reading scenario for yourself, or repeat the one you liked the best from this term
[writing assignment using these prompts follows; text character limit prevents inclusion of it in full]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rfs7afx6ue4mknbhhpnrzkyz/bafkreiel77b25truczj372qokmg5p3apa2dphux3jtplpz3dv35jul6wdu@jpeg)
July 19, 2025 at 4:37 AM
I love this so much!
The book prize is especially validating as my book came out when my son was 9 months old and I was returning as Dept Chair (a combo I do not recommend), and I did not have the energy or time to promote the book. So this feels great.
July 11, 2025 at 2:07 PM
The book prize is especially validating as my book came out when my son was 9 months old and I was returning as Dept Chair (a combo I do not recommend), and I did not have the energy or time to promote the book. So this feels great.
THRILLED to share that my book has won the VPFA Second Book Prize! 🎉
We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2024 VPFA Second Book Prize:
Tara MacDonald, Narrative, Affect, and Victorian Sensation: Wilful Bodies (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Prof. MacDonald will receive a £200 cash prize and be honoured at the Annual Conference AGM.
Tara MacDonald, Narrative, Affect, and Victorian Sensation: Wilful Bodies (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Prof. MacDonald will receive a £200 cash prize and be honoured at the Annual Conference AGM.
July 11, 2025 at 2:02 PM
THRILLED to share that my book has won the VPFA Second Book Prize! 🎉
Sobering and no doubt accurate. www.ipolitics.ca/2025/07/02/i...
‘It’s too late’: David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost - iPolitics
"We have failed to shift the narrative and we are still caught up in the same legal, economic and political systems," said David Suzuki in an exclusive interview with iPolitics. "For me, what we've go...
www.ipolitics.ca
July 5, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Sobering and no doubt accurate. www.ipolitics.ca/2025/07/02/i...
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
Bluesky peeps: please help! This is for the book I'm working on. Did you have family fire drills when you were growing up? (And what generation are you?) If you have kids, do you have family fire drills now? THANK YOU for your help and please REPOST this question! 😘 #AcademicSky #Writing #History
June 28, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Bluesky peeps: please help! This is for the book I'm working on. Did you have family fire drills when you were growing up? (And what generation are you?) If you have kids, do you have family fire drills now? THANK YOU for your help and please REPOST this question! 😘 #AcademicSky #Writing #History
And in more book news, my book on affect theory and sensation fiction is now out in paperback: edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-narrati...
Narrative, Affect and Victorian Sensation
Narrative, Affect and Victorian Sensation
edinburghuniversitypress.com
June 21, 2025 at 3:20 PM
And in more book news, my book on affect theory and sensation fiction is now out in paperback: edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-narrati...
Eek! Our Gaslighting book has a date! (And an amazing editor!)
Not only that but as of next wk it will officially be in production & slated for publication in March 2026, which Diana and her fantastic co-creators don't even know yet, because she is wonderfully ON IT when it comes to spreading the word. Fab for c19ers & film, gender, & cultural studies scholars!
Wanna know the history of #gaslighting? My co-edited book of essays, *Victorian Gaslighting*, will make you an expert! This juicy guide, co-created with @noragilbert.bsky.social and @tara-macdonald.bsky.social, is officially in pre-production at @sunypress.bsky.social and slated for pub in 2026!
June 20, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Eek! Our Gaslighting book has a date! (And an amazing editor!)
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
Wanna know the history of #gaslighting? My co-edited book of essays, *Victorian Gaslighting*, will make you an expert! This juicy guide, co-created with @noragilbert.bsky.social and @tara-macdonald.bsky.social, is officially in pre-production at @sunypress.bsky.social and slated for pub in 2026!
June 20, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Wanna know the history of #gaslighting? My co-edited book of essays, *Victorian Gaslighting*, will make you an expert! This juicy guide, co-created with @noragilbert.bsky.social and @tara-macdonald.bsky.social, is officially in pre-production at @sunypress.bsky.social and slated for pub in 2026!
Watching Mary Poppins with a sick toddler and forgot that the first song is the brilliant Sister Suffragette: “Though we adore men individually / We agree that as a group they're rather stupid.”
June 1, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Watching Mary Poppins with a sick toddler and forgot that the first song is the brilliant Sister Suffragette: “Though we adore men individually / We agree that as a group they're rather stupid.”
Friends, big news: starting this July, we are moving back to Canada! I’ll be Director of the Centre for Feminist Research and Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Lethbridge. Very excited!
May 1, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Friends, big news: starting this July, we are moving back to Canada! I’ll be Director of the Centre for Feminist Research and Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Lethbridge. Very excited!
Come hear me talk about my new(ish) book!
Online Event: Willful Women: Recent Publications (Event Date: 4/24/25) bit.ly/4cvGkOz
Online Event: Willful Women: Recent Publications (Event Date: 4/24/25) | NAVSA
bit.ly
April 10, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Come hear me talk about my new(ish) book!
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
CFP: The Routledge Companion to Sensation Fiction (Abstract Deadline: 5/15/25) bit.ly/42mhg7J
CFP: The Routledge Companion to Sensation Fiction (Abstract Deadline: 5/15/25) | NAVSA
bit.ly
April 10, 2025 at 5:51 PM
CFP: The Routledge Companion to Sensation Fiction (Abstract Deadline: 5/15/25) bit.ly/42mhg7J
This is so terrifying and alarming and cruel: These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration
Federal agencies have issued guidance to employees on hundreds of terms to limit or avoid using. An analysis of government websites shows many of the same words being removed.
www.nytimes.com
March 10, 2025 at 5:16 PM
This is so terrifying and alarming and cruel: These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The Victorian Interdisciplinary Association of the Western US conference will be in St Louis in October. Abstracts are due March 1! Consider applying: this is a great group. Friendly, collaborative, and creative. www.visawus.org/visawus-conf...
VISAWUS Conference — 2025 – Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States
www.visawus.org
February 12, 2025 at 11:22 PM
The Victorian Interdisciplinary Association of the Western US conference will be in St Louis in October. Abstracts are due March 1! Consider applying: this is a great group. Friendly, collaborative, and creative. www.visawus.org/visawus-conf...
Reposted by Tara MacDonald
#Valentines week mood. #Persuasion #JaneAusten
(With everything going on around us, that agony:hope ratio is starting to look quite attractive...)
(With everything going on around us, that agony:hope ratio is starting to look quite attractive...)
February 11, 2025 at 10:57 AM
#Valentines week mood. #Persuasion #JaneAusten
(With everything going on around us, that agony:hope ratio is starting to look quite attractive...)
(With everything going on around us, that agony:hope ratio is starting to look quite attractive...)
Not sure if this is accurate but…going to see if I can use all these words in my lecture on Oscar Wilde this morning and in my next article! No to this nonsense.
2. A memo distributed by NSA leadership to its staff says that on February 10, all NSA websites and internal network pages that contain banned words will be deleted.
This is the list of 27 banned words distributed to NSA staff:
This is the list of 27 banned words distributed to NSA staff:
February 10, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Not sure if this is accurate but…going to see if I can use all these words in my lecture on Oscar Wilde this morning and in my next article! No to this nonsense.
At least we finally have snow here.
February 6, 2025 at 1:51 AM
At least we finally have snow here.