Tessera

Mary Fairclough

@maryfairclough.bsky.social

Professor, Department of English and Related Literature and Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York. Books, running, messiness, cats

153 Posts842 Follower 355 Folgt

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 5d ago

Thank you #BARS2026 organisers and student assistants, keynotes, and speakers @bars.bsky.social for a brilliant three days in Birmingham! We missed you @drbeard79.bsky.social 🎶

Old Joe Birmingham university clock tower and a dry lawn and campus buildings

UV light scene of karaoke, Walking in Memphis on screen

Blue plaques on concrete including to Stuart Hall

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 2w ago

Yes!! 🤟🤟🤟 Get well soon Andy - we will miss you very much next week!

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79.bsky.social · 2w ago

Get yourself a subject association to secretary for who’ll send you a series of recovery gifts 🤟 @bars.bsky.social (a significant amount of gifts not pictured but very much appreciated 🖤🖤🖤)

A black T-shirt reading The Brontë Sisters in heavy metal font with a card depicting me as a yellow sloth - I would kill for its arm extension!

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 3w ago

Well this looks fantastic ✨

University of Wales Press@uniwalespress.bsky.social · 3w ago

Out now! 'Raymond Williams and the Structures of Feeling', edited by Niall Gildea and Louise Braddock, examines the concept of ‘structures of feeling' and its value for ongoing contemporary debates about relationships of human feeling. For more information, visit 👇️ 📚️ www.uwp.co.uk/book/raymond...

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 4w ago

A first glimpse of my book on the CUP website ✨ www.cambridge.org/core/books/r... Coming just in time for Christmas 2026. Very very happy to be published in Studies in Romanticism, especially alongside so many cracking books by brilliant women (h/t Emily, Yasmin, Orianne!)

Screenshot of publisher's webpage with details of book: Romantic Devotion, Coming soon, expected publication date December 2026.

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🗣️🗣️🗣️ There's a job at York! 1-year 0.5 FTE postdoctoral fellowship funded by MHRA, working with me on the Collected Works of Mary Wollstonecraft OUP edition. You have to be within 3 years of your PhD - unjust I know but a requirement of the MHRA. jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...

Jobs - The University of York

jobs.york.ac.uk

Dept of English and Related Literature at Uni of York @uoyenglishrl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Join us in celebrating the past, present and future of Creative Writing at York. Featuring Horatio Clare, Suzannah Evans and Kit Fan, alongside other departmental creative writers: April 22nd, 5pm, Church Lane Building, room CL/A057. buff.ly/G304Cqj

Matthew Sangster @mjrsangster.bsky.social · 4mo ago

A reminder that the deadline for Expressions of Interest in hosting BARS 2028 is coming up - if you're potentially interested, but have questions or concerns, please feel free to drop me an email. It's a big responsibility, but a very rewarding one, and crucial for the health of the Association.

British Association for Romantic Studies@bars.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The British Association for Romantic Studies is pleased to invite Expressions of Interest in hosting its 2028 International Biennial Conference. More information: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6294 Deadline: Tuesday 31 March 2026

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Springtime friends and neighbours 🌱

Four alpacas look at the camera, daffodils in background

poorly drawn cats @poorlycatdraw.bsky.social · 6mo ago

square

Alice Marples @alicemarples.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Fully-funded AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership project: 'Rediscovering a Woman Collector at the British Library: New Sources and Perspectives on Sarah Sophia Banks' - BL & UCL Dep of Information Studies www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit... Now open for student applications! Deadline: 14 April

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) PhD Studentship

Rediscovering a Woman Collector at the British Library: New Sources and Perspectives on Sarah Sophia Banks

ucl.ac.uk

Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 6mo ago

DOG AT THE OLYMPICS FULL COMPETITION HIGHLIGHTS

Claire Connolly @claireconnolly.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The Uses of Romanticism @ucc.ie Reading 18 Feb by Maureen McLane Papers 19 Feb by Mary-Ann Constantine, Elisa Cozzi, Porscha Fermanis @penfielding.bsky.social Nigel Leask, Omar Miranda, Jane Moore @drtinamorin.bsky.social Tríona Ní Shíocháin, Peadar Ó Muircheartaigh, Diego Saglia & Brandon Yen

Conferences, Seminars and Workshops | University College Cork

Learn, Study and Research in UCC, Ireland's first 5 star university. Our tradition of independent thinking will prepare you for the world and the workplace in a vibrant, modern, green campus.

ucc.ie

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 7mo ago

🗣️🗣️🗣️ Brilliant CfP for Romantic Elements: Rocks, and Stones, and Soil, 1750–1850 Symposium at The University of Manchester, 25–26 June, 2026. Keynotes Jeremy Davies and Stephanie O’Rourke. Organised by two @cecs-york.bsky.social alumni! No conference fee! [full CfP in image alt texts]

Romantic Elements: Rocks, and Stones, and Soil, 1750–1850 Symposium at The University of Manchester, 25–26 June, 2026

Keynote Speakers Dr Jeremy Davies (University of Leeds) Dr Stephanie O’Rourke (University of St Andrews)

Earth and earthiness are ubiquitous in the period’s many modes of nature writing, but elements of the ground do not flow or yield their depths like water, nor mediate like air. Earth as physical entity obscures, obstructs, and sullies, proving a less tractable ground for what we might still think of as defining Romantic-era postures of idealism and spontaneity. What literary forms, what knowledge practices, does earthly matter press poetics into? Is the geological record hostile to the human and human expression in its radical alterity, as Heringman at times suggests? Or are there underground places of passage, sympathy, even love, as Mary Jacobus, Susan Wolfson, and Tristram Wolff have more recently proposed? Is there a whole spectrum of attachments to rocks and stones, amounting to (in Wolff’s phrase) a ‘gray romanticism’, in which writers can both resist and relish digging in the dirt?

‘Romantic Elements: Rocks, and Stones, and Soil, 1750–1850’ aims to explore these questions. We seek to go beyond the exhilarating stony subjects of mountains, deep time, and fossils, widening the remit of Romantic-era writing about the earth to include more particulate matter and more conceptual treatments. We want to add soil, dirt, dust, sand, and ashes to the Wordsworthian catalogue of Romantic elements; and we want to expand our theoretical and metaphoric range to excavate the implications of Barbauld’s and Shelley’s ‘unearthly forms’.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on the theme of earth, unearthing, and the unearthly in Romantic-era poetry and prose (1750–1850). When engaging with the theme, prospective speakers may wish to explore topics such as the following:

Earth, earthiness, and literary form/genre
The subterranean/undercommons
The components of earth: mud, soil, clods, dust, sand
Earthy elements as sites of affect or criticality
Poetic and/or epistemological obscurity
Images or forms of burial and concealment
Images or forms of unearthing, unveiling, or revelation
Earth as generative, fertile, life-giving
Earth as a site of labour and resource extraction
Earth as gendered, queered/queering, racialized, classed
Formalist, ecocritical, queer, and affective approaches to earth, earthiness, and unearthing

Please send proposals for 20-minute papers in the form of a 250-word abstract and an author biography (150 words) to James Metcalf (james.metcalf@manchester.ac.uk) and Millie Schurch (millie.schurch@english.su.se) by Friday 30 January 2026.

Please note: this will be an in-person meeting only. With thanks to support from the Swedish Research Council, there will be no conference fee for speakers, other than to attend the optional conference dinner at the end of the first day. Food and refreshments will be provided on both days (coffee and pastries; lunch; tea-break snack).

We are particularly keen to encourage the participation of early career researchers and scholars on precarious employment contracts. We are pleased to be able to offer up to 10 bursaries to cover accommodation and travel within the UK for those without access to institutional support for research activities. Please indicate with your abstract submission if you do not have access to institutional financial support and would like to be considered for a bursary.

We hope to hear from you! Millie and James

poorly drawn cats @poorlycatdraw.bsky.social · 7mo ago

“oh, i wish there were some kind of punctuation to chain these two sentences together” the humble semicolon:

believe me or not, this is a drawing of two black cats, but their shape resembles a semicolon

two black cats lying down, their shape resembles a semicolon

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 8mo ago

‘Tis the season, for tiny tree, enormous cat 🎄🩶

Jones the big grey cat sits next to a diminutive Christmas tree

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I'm talking about Anna Laetitia Barbauld again tomorrow! 🗣️🗣️🗣️York Georgian Society lecture: more details here: www.georgianyork.org.uk/events-1/ann...

Anna Laetita Barbauld, eighteenth-century polymath, two-hundred years on | My Site

georgianyork.org.uk

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Looking forward to delivering the Annual Dr Williams's Lecture tomorrow at Senate House, London: Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Dissenting Hymns 🗣️🗣️🗣️

Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York@cecs-york.bsky.social · 10mo ago

📢 Bookings are open for the 2025 Annual Dr Williams’s Lecture, delivered by our own Prof Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social at CECS & @uoyenglishrl.bsky.social Book your place for this exciting event on 29 October at the School of Advanced Study, London: www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 10mo ago

sunset stroll season 🌅

The Leeds Liverpool canal at sunset, with reflections from n the water

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 11mo ago

a small Friday gift

half a rainbow over Parson’s bridge, Leeds Liverpool canal

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 11mo ago

✨intellectually rowdy✨@cecs-york.bsky.social ❤️ Congratulations Rhys!

Rhys Kaminski-Jones@rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 11mo ago

And just in case it sounds like I'm only crediting my old MA supervisor John Barrell with teaching me "some things" - here's the more fulsomely worded and entirely accurate credit I give him (and the rest of @cecs-york.bsky.social) in my acknowledgements!

I’ve been thinking through Welsh cultural revivalism since my MA degree at the University of York. I’m hugely grateful to the English Department at Ysgol Bro Myrddin and everyone at Hertford College, Oxford (in particular, Emma Smith), but CECS at King’s Manor was where the long eighteenth century really caught hold of me: an exciting, open, friendly, generous, ever-so-slightly intellectually rowdy research culture will do that for you. I’m truly thankful to everyone I met there, student or tutor, and my thanks in particular go to John Barrell, who supervised my dissertation, grilled me about harps, wrote me umpteen references, and pointed me towards research funding that made my PhD possible – I’m not sure I’d be writing this without him.

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Rest in Peace Jack Donovan: outstanding Shelley scholar, wonderful teacher, and delightful human www.york.ac.uk/english/abou...

Jack Donovan

It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of our former colleague Jack Donovan.

york.ac.uk

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · 12mo ago

long but not forgotten

Statue of Long Boi the duck on the University of York campus. The plaque reads: In memory of our friend and campus celebrity Long Boi, who stood tall at a mighty 71cm before leaving us in 2023. Long, but not forgotten

British Association for Romantic Studies @bars.bsky.social · last yr.

BARS First Book Prize: Call for Expressions of Interest in Serving on the Judging Panel BARS invites expressions of interest from Romanticists who would like to serve on the judging panel for the next BARS First Book Prize. More information here: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6086

BARS First Book Prize: Call for Expressions of Interest in Serving on the Judging Panel – BARS Blog

bars.ac.uk

Leigh Claire La Berge @lclaberge.bsky.social · last yr.

Happy Bastille Day! Feline reminder that philosophical patron saint of the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, put a cat on the cover of "The Social Contract" because cats were his “test of character”; those who don’t enjoy cats “have the despotic instinct of men.” @dukepress.bsky.social

British Association for Romantic Studies @bars.bsky.social · last yr.

Now on the BARS Blog: Registration is Open for Eloquent Voices: Orality in the Age of Print, 1750-1870 A one-day conference at the University of Sussex, Tuesday 16 September, 2025 See the blog and full details/registration link here: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6056 Please repost/share!

Registration Open: Eloquent Voices: Orality in the Age of Print, 1750-1870 – BARS Blog

bars.ac.uk

Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · last yr.

📢 We’re thrilled to announce that we have up to 4 student bursary awards for the MA in Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York for 2025-26. Deadline to apply is 31 July. Please share widely! www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c... #18thcentury #18thC

Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies bursaries - Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York

Thanks to funding from an external donor, we offer up to four bursaries towards fees for the MA in Eighteenth Century Studies.

york.ac.uk

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · last yr.

Our Barbauld conferences is next week! Still time to register, in-person or online 🗣️🗣️🗣️

Mary Fairclough@maryfairclough.bsky.social · last yr.

Join us in York and online 27-28 June for our conference Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voicing Dissent. Fantastic speakers! Great value registrations, including free registration for York students! 🗣️🗣️🗣️ tinyurl.com/barbauld25

Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · last yr.

Many congratulations to Dr Catriona Kennedy @trionakennedy.bsky.social on her new book, Women, Politics, and the Irish Public Sphere in the Age of Revolution, from Oxford University Press. A beautiful and insightful book! 📚💫🎉 Find out more @oxfordunipress.bsky.social: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Catriona Kennedy’s new book, photographed in front of the historic King’s Manor.

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · last yr.

🗣️🗣️🗣️

Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York@cecs-york.bsky.social · last yr.

Registration is now open for our landmark conference ‘Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voicing Dissent’. We have a wonderful programme of international speakers including the editors of Barbauld’s Collected Works (OUP 2025). 📍 Online and in person at King’s Manor, 27-28 June. More info: tinyurl.com/barbauld25

Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social · last yr.

Conference poster for Barbauld: Voicing Dissent conference

Mary Fairclough@maryfairclough.bsky.social · last yr.

Registration is OPEN for the Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voicing Dissent conference! Join us in York on 27-28 June to celebrate, Barbauld, Dissent, voices of all kinds, and publication of the OUP edition of Barbauld’s Works. More details and registration at the conference webpage: tinyurl.com/barbauld25