Candidates: 2023 RSVP Elections for vacancies: Board of Directors and Graduate Student Representative

Standing for: Board of Directors (two-year term)

    • Alison Chapman
    • Name: Alison Chapman
    • Candidate Statement:

      Professor Alison Chapman (University of Victoria, Canada)

      Alison Chapman is Professor of English at the University of Victoria and serves as general editor of the SSHRC-funded Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry (DVPP) (https://dvpp.uvic.ca/). She was thrilled to give the Wolff lecture at the 2023 RSVP conference in Caen, as well as to serve on the 2023 Colby Book Prize committee. Her interest in nineteenth-century periodicals properly began when she co-organized the Places of Exchange: Magazines, Journals and Newspapers in British and Irish Culture, 1688-1945 conference at the University of Glasgow 21 years ago. If lucky enough to be elected to the RSVP Board, she is eager to enthusiastically support the society’s vibrant, generous, and inclusive culture of mentorship and collaboration. (For full profile, see here)

    • Clare Horrocks
    • Name: Clare Horrocks
    • Candidate Statement:

      Dr. Clare Horrocks (Liverpool John Moores University, UK)

      I have been a long-standing member of RSVP for almost twenty years, having published frequently in Victorian Periodicals Review, presented at annual conferences, as well as organising one of the annual events. I have always valued RSVP’s inviting and collegiate spirit, particularly encouraging new researchers and scholars. As one of the recipients of the first Curran Fellowships, I have been thrilled to see how the funding and grants system has developed. In my role on the Board, I would actively work to seek new opportunities for enhancing the work of the Society, strengthening our understanding of the Victorian periodical press even further. For further details, see here.

    • Linda Hughes
    • Name: Linda Hughes
    • Candidate Statement:

      Prof. Linda Hughes (Texas Christian University, USA)

      I am honored to be nominated for the Board of Directors. If elected, my highest priority will be doing all I can to support the longevity of RSVP, its efforts to enhance inclusion and diversity, and plans to grow the membership.  I joined RSVP in 1987 and can bring cultural memory to the board but also active listening skills attuned to rising leaders who will shape RSVP’s future. I have previously served as RSVP Secretary, Vice President, and President, and have chaired or served on several committees.  See my complete vita, including my RSVP service here.   

    • Emma Liggins
    • Name: Emma Liggins
    • Candidate Statement:

      Dr. Emma Liggins (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

      I have been involved with RSVP for twenty years and have presented at 5 conferences. As an expert in fin-de-siecle journalism, I have published three articles and several book reviews in VPR and guest- edited a special issue with Minna Vuohelainen, on the Strand Magazine (2019). I would like to give something back to the RSVP community and help with conferences, funding decisions and supporting PGRs. As Reader in English I have supervised and examined projects on the Victorian periodical press. I also have 10 years’ experience of event organisation as co-director of the Long Nineteenth-Century Network at Manchester Metropolitan University.

    • Richard Scully
    • Name: Richard Scully
    • Candidate Statement:

      Prof. Richard Scully (University of New England, Australia)

      Richard Scully is Associate Professor in Modern History. He published his first piece in Victorian Periodicals Review in 2011, and has been an avid follower of the journal, and the Society supporting it ever since (having become an RSVP member in 2013). Richard's chief research interest is in comic art and cartooning history. He is the author, amongst other works of Eminent Victorian Cartoonists (3 Volumes, London, 2018) and British Images of Germany, 1860-1914: Admiration, Antagonism & Ambivalence (2012). Richard has extensive board experience, including serving on the governing Council of the University of New England (2018-2020) and the UNE Academic Board (2011-2013 & 2015).

Standing for: Graduate Student/Postgraduate Student Representative (two-year term)

    • Matthew Stephens
    • Name: Matthew Stephens
    • Candidate Statement:

      Matthew Hill (PGR, Edge Hill University and The British Library, UK)

      I’m Matthew Stephens, currently approaching the end of my second year as a full-time postgraduate research student, undertaking a collaborative PhD with Edge Hill University, Lancashire and the British Library. My thesis aims to reassess conventional understanding of success and failure in the nineteenth-century press, focusing on short-lived newspapers. Over the last two years, I have been welcomed into the inclusive, supportive community of periodicals scholars, especially by RSVP. I’m interested in becoming a postgraduate representative to develop further the society’s encouragement and support of postgraduate researchers in the field, with the goal of strengthening collaborative scholarly networks across borders.