Please see below for the details on upcoming research seminars from, or in partnership with, the School of English and Journalism:

History and Heritage Research Seminar on Wed 21st February, 4.30-6pm in MB3202.
Holly Trusted, Senior Curator of Sculpture, V&A Museum, will deliver a paper on:

Displaying Plaster Casts at the Museum: South Kensington and the Reproduction of Sculpture

From the moment of its inception in the 1850s, the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) proudly displayed plaster casts of sculptures and architectural details, for both educational and museological purposes. Once the great Architectural Courts (now known as the Cast Courts) were opened in 1873, the wide-ranging and hugely impressive collection of plaster casts exercised an enormous impact on artists, craftsmen, and the visiting public, both visually and conceptually. These casts were not however shown in isolation: an array of other reproductions and works of art were to be seen in the same galleries. Electrotypes, photographs, watercolour copies of paintings, brass rubbings and architectural models, as well as monumental sculptures in stone, were initially juxtaposed alongside the plasters.

How did contemporary perceptions of reproductions in the mid to late nineteenth century differ from our way of looking at the plaster casts today? And how did twentieth-century attitudes to reproductions colour the importance they were given, both in a museum, and for the purposes of art education? My paper will focus on the history of the great cast collection at the V&A, and how we view it today, particularly in relation to the current renovation project of the Cast Courts, due to be completed in late 2018. I will be focusing on specific plaster casts, notably Trajan’s Column from Rome, and the great Pórtico de la Gloria from Santiago de Compostela.

MA Nineteenth Century Studies Group on Weds 28th February, 12:30pm-2pm in MC3201.
Dr Wolfgang Funk (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) will deliver a paper, titled:

‘“We trust Evolution to make us amends” – Evolution and Emancipation in Late Victorian Women’s Poetry’.

We hope to see some of you at these events. Be sure to visit our Research Group Page for more information.