Romanticism and Eighteenth Century Studies Oxford
About
This network was funded from March 2014 to March 2016.
Romanticism and Eighteenth-Century Studies Oxford (RECSO) was a graduate-led initiative for scholars across the Humanities Division. Our aim was to provide a platform for graduates and academics from various disciplines to discuss and share their research into the long eighteenth century. It also facilitated the development of projects, workshops and larger events, and facilitated a physical meeting space for RECSO’s growing body of members.
In Michaelmas term 2016, RECSO considered ‘Researching the Eighteenth Century’, convened by Dr. Fiona Gatty. These sessions built upon our successful 2014 series ‘Teaching the Eighteenth Century’, with a focus on the challenges faced by researchers today.
The RECSO website provides a directory of seminars, contacts, online resources, and the latest news from a range of different disciplines in Oxford and beyond, as well as information about our regular events, talks, and workshops (see ‘Events’ for more information).
Contact
Eamonn O'Keeffe, Faculty of History
Related Activities
Sign up to our mailing list on our website (www.recsoxford.org) and visit our eighteenth-century News Blog (www.recsoxford.org/News).
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People
Events
Past Events
Constructive Chronologies? Periodisation and Disciplines (May 2014)
Clare Bucknell: ‘No Man’s Land: Marginal Mid-Century Literature’
Dr Oliver Cox: ‘Restoration? Country House Conservation and the Construction of the Georgian era’
Dr Abigail Williams: ‘Periods and Perfume: Marketing the Ages to a Modern Audience’
Chair: Adam Bridgen
Thinking with Objects: The Impact of Material Culture on Disciplinary Boundaries, Teaching Practices, and Eighteenth-Century Studies (May 2014)
Dr Giovanna Vitelli (Ashmolean):
A seminar to explore the potential for cross-disciplinary learning and teaching in the long eighteenth century, and present recent case studies of successful collaboration.
Ephemera: Defining, Collecting and Researching the Fragmentary Past (June 2014)
Julie Anne Lambert (Bodleian Library):
Chair: Dr Abigail Williams
A seminar to explore the interrelating ways in which ephemera is defined, how it has been preserved and the significance of collections – past and present – and the ways in which it has recently grown in significance within a range of different disciplines.
RECSO End-Of-Year Conference Competition and BSECS Panel Funding (June 2014)
A graduate specific workshop relating to the end-of-year RECSO conference, Global Connections: Influences from Elsewhere in Eighteenth-Century British Art, Literature, and Culture led by Joe Davies.
How to Portray a Touch, a Kiss: Eye, Mouth and Breast Miniatures (October 2014)
Speaker: Professor Hanneke Grootenboer
‘Music in Context’: Studying and Teaching the Eighteenth Century (November 2014)
Speaker: Professor Susan Wollenberg
Eighteenth-Century History for Beginners: Teaching Challenges (November 2014)
Speaker: Professor Joanna Innes
Historicist Norms and the Argument for Aesthetics in Teaching the Eighteenth Century (December 2014)
Speaker: Professor Ros Ballaster
The RECSO Launch Party, Dinner, and Drinks (December 2014)
An opportunity to talk to the term's speakers and RECSO's members and celebrate the recent launch of the RECSO Network.
90 Seconds, 5 Questions (January – March 2015 Four Events)
The term’s programme focused on research on the eighteenth century across a variety of disciplines. Each speaker began by pitching their thesis in 90 seconds, before responding to a fixed set of 5 questions from a selected RECSO interviewer.
Martina Piperno, PhD Candidate Italian Studies, University of Warwick
Thesis: Looking back at the ancient world in Italy from Vico to Leopardi (1708-1837)
Thesis: Looking back at the ancient world in Italy from Vico to Leopardi (1708-1837)
Dr Oliver Cox, Knowledge Exchange Fellow – Thames Valley Country House Partnership Project
Thesis (completed 2013): Rule Britannia: Kind Alfred the Great and the Creation of a National Hero in England and America, 1640-1800
Thesis (completed 2013): Rule Britannia: Kind Alfred the Great and the Creation of a National Hero in England and America, 1640-1800
Hannah Kinney, DPhil Candidate History of Art, University of Oxford
Thesis: Reproducing History: Moulds, Copies, and Ideas of Patrimony in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Florence
Thesis: Reproducing History: Moulds, Copies, and Ideas of Patrimony in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Florence
Katherine Fender, DPhil Candidate English Literature, University of Oxford
Thesis: Bardic Brothers and The Welsh Sublime: William Blake, Iolo Morganwg and William Wordsworth
Thesis: Bardic Brothers and The Welsh Sublime: William Blake, Iolo Morganwg and William Wordsworth
Objects from the Wallace Collection (June 2015)
An afternoon of graduate presentations, chaired by Adam Bridgen, about objects from the Wallace Collection.
Lindsay Macnaughton, ‘Tables Turned: Challenging a Perceived Image of Eighteenth-Century elite Parisian Society’
Elena Sorochina, ‘The Eighteenth-Century Duel: Between Feudalism and Enlightenment’
'At Home': Exploring Eighteenth-Century Domestic Space (June 2015)
A study day, organised by Dr Karen Lipsedge (Kingston University) to explore domestic space from an interdisciplinary perspective, tracing the vital significance of the home in art, design, architecture, literature, culture and social politics in the long eighteenth century.
Convenor: Adam Bridgen
Off-Stage Rules: Sarah Siddons and Satire (October 2015)
A seminar led by Anna Senkiw (DPhil Candidate English, University of Oxford)
The Sublime Meets the Grotesque: Caleb Williams and Frankenstein (November 2015)
A seminar led by Lesley Thulin (Mst English Literature, University of Oxford)
Pick-Pockets and Pocket-Books (November 2015)
A seminar on 'Pick-Pockets and Pocket-Books: Representations of privacy and propriety in eighteenth-century Britain' led by Hazel Tubman (DPhil History, University of Oxford)
Reading Blake's Baptism(s) (December 2015)
A seminar led by Naomi Billingsley (PhD Religions and Theology, University of Manchester)
What Is Politics? Exploring the History of a Concept Across the Euro-Islamic World (February 2016)
A workshop to explore changing understandings of ‘politics’ in Europe, the Ottoman and Arab worlds and South Asia, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Lecture and Masterclass with Dame Emma Kirkby (February 2016)
A lecture on historical gesture and acting practices given by Professor Tiffany Stern.
A singing masterclass with soprano Dame Emma Kirkby.
The lecture was followed by a practical workshop run by Dionysios Kyropoulos to learn some of the gestures for yourselves.
Capers, Crockery, and Clocks (June 2016)
An afternoon of graduate presentations of objects from the Wallace Collection in London.
- Vittoria Fallanca: Interpreting Allegory in Poussin's 'A Dance to the Music of Time'
- Thea Goldring: Transformations in Images and Meaning in Sèvres Porcelain
- Rachel Skokowski: Rotating Dial Clocks and the Visualization of Time in Late Eighteenth-Century France
Imagining Apocalypse (June 2016)
A one-day conference, in collaboration with Dr Catherine Redford, brought together academics from various disciplines to reassess the responses to the idea of apocalypse produced during the ‘long’ eighteenth century.
A plenary lecture given by Professor Fiona Stafford (Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford) followed by musical and literary performances.
Exhibition: The English Garden, Views and Visitors (July 2016)
Items from the collections of the Bodleian Library told the story of eighteenth-century garden design, creativity, and tourism.
Gardeners’ Question Time: Capability Brown Edition (July 2016)
Event with the Head Gardeners of Stowe and Compton Verney to learn about the challenges, changes and rewards of looking after two of Capability Brown’s most important landscapes.
Translation and Research in Eighteenth-Century Studies (October 2016)
Researching the Eighteenth Century with Dr. Kelsey Rubin-Detlev (Queen’s College). The talk discussed the importance of translation in eighteenth-century studies: as a daily part of research, as a career option, and as a concept inherent in the material we study. She then focused on her translation project in collaboration with Andrew Kahn, Catherine the Great's Selected Letters for Oxford World's Classics.
A Life in the Past: Finding Your Way Round the Archives and Libraries of France in a Pre-Digital Age (October 2016)
With Professor Laurence Brockliss (Magdalen College, University of Oxford)
Working with Data: Excel, XML, and Poetry (November 2016)
With Dr. Carly Watson (English Faculty, University of Oxford)
The talk considered how far it is possible, or desirable, to pursue a data-driven approach to literary history. Drawing on her experience with the Digital Miscellanies Index, Dr Watson discussed the potential of current digital resources and the challenges of working with data.
Collaborative Research Projects: Challenges and Benefits (November 2016)
With Professor Joanna Innes (Somerville College, University of Oxford)
Cultures of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland (February 2017)
A study day. The event included 4 papers by academics, librarians, musicians, and museum professionals, on the subject of collecting in the eighteenth century.
Speakers included:
Dr Tim Eggington (Queens’ College Library, Cambridge)
Dr Karen McAulay (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow)
Dr Arthur MacGregor (formerly of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
Women, Authorship, and Identity in the Long Eighteenth-Century: New Methodologies (June 2017)
Conference with keynote speaker: Susanne Kord (UCL)
Instruments of War (November 2017)
Speaker: Eamonn O’Keeffe, University of Cambridge
Instruments of Emancipation: The Changing Uses and Roles of Keyboards in the Eighteenth-Century (November 2017)
Speaker: Francis Knights, Director of Studies in Music, University of Cambridge
Instruments of Love: The Recorder as an Instrument of Love (November 2017)
Speakers: Douglas MacMillan and Isobel Clarke
Instruments of Status: The Flute in Eighteenth-Century Scotland (November 2017)
Speaker: Dr Elizabeth Ford, University of Glasgow
Evening Talk at the Shelley Memorial (October 2018)
with Univ archivist Robin Darwall-Smith
Theatre on the Move in Times of Conflict (1750-1850) (September 2019)
The project investigated how conflict facilitated encounters between theatrical cultures and how these encounters impacted theatrical milieus and their development.
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