Candidates: Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Board of Directors Election 2022

Standing for: Board Members

    • Maria Damkjær
    • Name: Maria Damkjær
    • Candidate Statement:

      Maria Damkjær, Associate Professor (temporary)
      Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Copenhagen

      I received my PhD from King's College London in 2013, and that project resulted in a book, Time, Domesticity and Print Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). In this project, I worked with serials of novels and cookbooks, and with periodical writing, and I never looked back. I have since published on comic umbrellas in print culture (VPR, 2017), and I have a forthcoming book chapter about the beach trope in popular periodicals and the circulation of cliché. My current book project is about genre hybridity in mid-century popular periodicals: the acts of page filling, advertising and general service that narrative fiction was made to do in the pages of the weekly magazine. The project addresses what I call a 'print imaginary' -- a fictional realm where the magazine itself, or its production, is made symbolically meaningful, either by imagining ideal readers, or by dramatising the magazine and its print culture heroics.

      Since I started coming to RSVP conferences in 2014 (Wilmington), they have been the conferences that have consistently given me most food for thought and most help for my work. I wish to serve on the board to give back to an association that has provided me with so much community over the years. I have experience managing research series, I have served on the board of my choir, and I am a strong believer in the power of associations and co-operatives. My particular passion is the wellbeing of PhD students and early career researchers.

    • Beth Gaskell
    • Name: Beth Gaskell
    • Candidate Statement:

      Beth Gaskell
      Curator, Newspaper Collections, British Library

      Beth Gaskell is Curator of Newspaper Collections at the British Library. She has a multidisciplinary background, having studied English Literature, History and Library Science. Her PhD, completed at The University of Greenwich in 2020, explored the interrelation between the development of professional military periodicals and the professionalisation of the British Army in the long 19th century. Her publications include ‘Bibliographic issues: titles, numbers, frequencies’, in the Colby Prize winning Researching the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press: Case Studies (Routledge 2018), ‘News Breaker’ profiles in Breaking the News: 500 Years of News in Britain (British Library 2022), and ‘Crafting the Professional Reader: Book Reviews in the Military and Medical Press’ with Alison Moulds (Victorian Periodicals Review, forthcoming 2022). She is currently completing a (Covid delayed) project to collect bibliographic and historic data about 19th century regimental journals, funded by a Curren Fellowship awarded in 2020. Her work at the British Library has involved overseeing a large-scale project to digitize and research a collection of 19th century newspapers, curating an exhibition celebrating 500 years of news in Britain, and creating a (soon to be launched) web space exploring 19th century news publications. She has been a member of RSVP since 2014, and enjoys being an active member of such a friendly and generous research community. She would be honoured to have the opportunity to serve on the Board of RSVP, to help navigate changing demands of the ongoing pandemic situation, and to champion access and inclusivity.

    • Mary L. Shannon
    • Name: Mary L. Shannon
    • Candidate Statement:

      Mary L. Shannon
      Senior Lecturer, University of Roehampton, London

      I am standing for election to one of the open Board positions because I have benefitted so much (both personally and professionally) from the expert and friendly community of RSVP and I would like to give something back to the Society and to its members.

      I first became aware of RSVP when I was finishing my PhD and was immediately struck by how welcoming an organisation it was. RSVP has boosted my career twice, at significant times that made all the difference to my continuation as an academic: once when I won the Colby Prize in 2016 and again when I was awarded the Peterson Fellowship for 2021/22. I know first-hand how important, sustaining, and transformative the support and recognition of RSVP can be, and I would be honoured to help administer the business of the Society by serving on the Board and assisting RSVP in supporting other scholars to access the same kinds of opportunities it has already provided me.

      Since receiving awards myself I have already served on the RSVP Board (once), the Colby Prize Committee (twice), and the Peterson Fellowship Committee (once), so I have a good understanding of the work of RSVP as well as the processes of the Society. I would be a conscientious and committed member of the Board, and I very much hope you will look favourably on my candidacy.

    • Michelle Smith
    • Name: Michelle Smith
    • Candidate Statement:

      Michelle Smith
      Monash University (Australia)

      I have a long-standing interest in British and Australian girls’ and women’s periodicals, which is evident in all three of my monographs, including my most recent, Consuming Female Beauty: British Literature and Periodicals, 1840-1915 (2022, Edinburgh UP). I have published several articles in Victorian Periodicals Review (both co-authored with Kristine Moruzi) and will publish the first essay on the Australian women’s magazine New Idea in The Edinburgh Companion to British Colonial Periodicals (forthcoming). With Kristine Moruzi and Beth Rodgers, I am also currently co-editing The Edinburgh History of Children’s Periodicals, working with dozens of scholars in the field.

      I am interested in serving on the RSVP Board to support the continued activities of RSVP in fostering periodicals scholarship through its annual conference, VPR, and grants. I would particularly welcome the opportunity to represent scholars in the southern hemisphere and to develop links and collaborations with emerging and established researchers in the Australasian region.

    • Fiona Snailham
    • Name: Fiona Snailham
    • Candidate Statement:

      Fiona Snailham
      University of Greenwich

      Fiona Snailham is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Greenwich. Her doctoral thesis, completed in 2020, explored concepts of ‘progress’ in the work of Eliza Lynn Linton. Since completing her PhD, receipt of a Research Scholarship from Gladstone’s Library and a Research Funding Award from the British Association of Victorian Studies has enabled her to expand her research into Linton’s social networks. Her forthcoming monograph on Eliza Lynn Linton will form part of the Key Popular Women Writers series published by Edward Everett Root. Having recently contributed an article on the mid-nineteenth century ghost story to Women’s Writing, Fiona’s current project examines intersections between Christianity and spiritualism in Victorian periodicals.

      At her first conference as a doctoral student, Fiona felt warmly welcomed by RSVP members and would like to contribute to the work of the Society as a means of repaying some of that debt. Fiona believes that the experience gained in her current post as Treasurer for the Victorian Popular Fiction Association, combined with skills honed in her former role as a School Governor, could prove useful to the work of the Board. She is eager to offer her service to a society which provides invaluable support to scholars working on nineteenth-century periodicals. Still at the start of her own academic journey, she is particularly keen to represent the interests of early career and contingent scholars.

Standing for: Treasurer

    • Troy J. Bassett
    • Name: Troy J. Bassett
    • Candidate Statement:

      Troy J. Bassett
      Purdue University Fort Wayne

      As a member of RSVP for the past twelve years, I have been blessed to see the society continue to thrive. As a member of several award committees, a member of the Brighton conference organizing committee, and a member of the board of directors for two terms, I hope I have helped to contribute to the society’s success. Having worked with the current treasurer Iain Crawford on the board of directors and on the finance committee, I feel I have the experience necessary to maintain the steady fiscal course charted by Iain and the executive committee.

Standing for: Vice President

    • Priti Joshi
    • Name: Priti Joshi
    • Candidate Statement:

      Priti Joshi
      Pierce Professor of English (affiliated with Asian Studies), University of Puget Sound

      I am honored to be nominated for the VP position of RSVP; there is no dearer organization I have been part of than this. But more than my heart, RSVP has been central to my intellectual development and flourishing since I wandered into the first conference (at Roehampton). There I was struck that the “big names” turned up for all the talks and engaged us “nobodies” generously and respectfully. That collaborative spirit is central to the ethos of RSVP and I have every faith it will last as long as the organization does! As we look to the future, we, like other academic organizations, also have some creative thinking ahead as Covid has put in peril those gatherings we found so sustaining. To make lemonade, it also heightened questions about our carbon footprint and equitable access to conferences across ranks. As we move into our post-pandemic moment, we will rejigger what collective gatherings and collaboration looks like, building on the work with the Digital Salons and that so many on the Virtual Events committee have done to rethink the conference model in the last two years. Such reimagining, along with the exciting range of fellowships that we now support (thanks to the generosity of many benefactors and excellent management), makes RSVP an exciting place for an astonishingly wide range of works that push the V and P in our name, even as they honor those who insisted that Victorian newspapers and periodicals require serious attention and analysis. I’m delighted to be part of this group and proud that my recent book Empire News: The Anglo-Indian Press Writes India (2021; winner of the Colby prize) and publications in the last decade-and-a-half owe everything to this sustaining community.

    • Lindsy Lawrence
    • Name: Lindsy Lawrence
    • Candidate Statement:

      Lindsy Lawrence
      University of Arkansas at Fort Smith

      I am honored to have been nominated for this role. Since my first conference as an early career faculty member, RSVP has been a welcoming and supportive community. I deeply value the work that we do together. I’ve been a member of RSVP since 2009. I have served the RSVP community as a member of the board since Fall 2020, and I served on the election bylaws review committee. I have also served on the 2022 Sally Mitchell Dissertation Prize Committee, the 2021 Field Development Committee, and as a reader for the Van Arsdel prize. I am a Professor of English and Department Chair of English, Rhetoric and Writing, and Media Communication at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. My other administrative experience includes chairing the UAFS Policy and Procedures committee, Faculty Handbook committee, and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programming committee. I have published work on Elizabeth Gaskell, serial poetry publication in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and Neo-Victorian themes in contemporary television series such as Downton Abbey and Doctor Who. My recent publications include a 2022 essay on poetry in Belgravia and collaboration with undergraduate researchers. I am also Co-Director of the Periodical Poetry Index, periodicalpoetry.org.