Author Archives: Sharon Ruston

About Sharon Ruston

My main research interests are in the relations between the literature, science and medicine of the Romantic period, 1780-1820. My first book, Shelley and Vitality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), explored the medical and scientific contexts which inform Shelley's concept of vitality in his major poetry. Since then, I have been working on Mary Wollstonecraft's interest in natural history, William Godwin's interest in mesmerism, and Humphry Davy's writings on the sublime; these form chapters in my most recent book, Creating Romanticism: Case Studies in the Literature, Science, and Medicine of the 1790s (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). I am currently co-editing the Collected Letters of Sir Humphry Davy and his Circle (www.davy-letters.org.uk).

The book’s in; what’s next?

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Dear blog,

So, I managed to get the book in by the deadline and the day after it went in I went on holiday. I’m back at my desk now and still tired, but glad that it’s done. It was incredibly hard work; twelve-hour days for the last few months and very difficult to fit in with everything else that’s going on. There were 400 items in the bibliography in the end, which shows how much work went into it; I’ve been working on and off on it for years. The last three weeks were a bit easier when I wasn’t going into work and was able to commit to the book (almost) full time. I wish I had more time like this when I can concentrate on only one thing, really focus on it and feel like I achieve something. It’s not over yet and I’m under no illusions; now it goes for a clearance read and I’m sure there will be more work to do when I get the reader’s report back, but for now I’m going to do my best not to think about that.

I’m doing a lunchtime lecture at the Royal Society on Friday 28th September, which is very exciting, on Mary Wollstonecraft and natural history: http://royalsociety.org/events/2012/rights-of-woman/. This is one of a number of ‘gigs’ lined up for the next couple of months, also including a research paper at the University of Oxford and a conference plenary in Valencia. I’m also examining two PhD theses this autumn/winter, as well as writing at least one essay. Tomorrow I have an initial meeting to consider a new research grant application. This semester though I’m on research leave and so will be living in London, working at the Royal Institution and other archives, on what will now become my main project again — the Humphry Davy Collected Letters (http://www.davy-letters.org.uk/). It’ll be lovely to get back to this work after an enforced absence due to the book. There’s so much work to do and the few months I have away from work will fly by. I really want to make the most of them and have achieved lots by the time I go back.

Before then, I’m having some more much needed holiday. More soon.

Best,

Sharon

Nearly finished the book

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Dear blog,

There’s a week to go till my book is due in. I’m in London at the moment after spending the day checking a few last minute references (confusion between Coleridge’s Notebooks and Works now averted) and am now settling in for the final read-through. It’s disconcerting to still be finding silly typos and errors, which makes you worry that there must be loads of them that you’re not finding but still, it’s nearly ready to go.

After the deadline I have some much-needed holiday and then I need to crack on with the essay I’m writing on drugs and literature for the Oxford Handbook of Romanticism. I’m going to incorporate some stuff on Davy and nitrous oxide – the happiness drug of the 1790s, which is still sold in festivals in the UK. From 1st September I shall be on research leave and dedicate myself again to the Davy Letters project, which has been much neglected while I’ve been writing the book.

From 10th September I shall be in London (cat and house sitting for friends) and will work in the Royal Institution for about two months, transcribing and checking transcriptions of the 200 letters held in the RI’s archive. These are the single biggest collection but I shall also in my final month in London do the same for the 50-odd letters held in the Lambton archive in West London.

There’s a blue sky here in London and I hear that the weather’s going to improve. Here goes for my final week of 12-hour days without caffeine or alcohol. Wish me luck…

Best,

Sharon

Finishing the Book

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Dear blog,

So, I’ve been unable to post anything on this blog for three months. I’m not sure why (I’m sure there must be a good reason for it) but all of the blogs have moved to a new platform and here, finally, I am back again.

The cynic in me wonders at the timing of my not being able to blog. The last three months perfectly coincides with the 90 consultation period that the University of Salford gave to those people who were threatened with redundancy. In English, the threat has abated because of people moving to other jobs elsewhere, a retirement, and someone deciding to go part-time. The threat still looms over others in the university and they have had to reapply for their jobs and face interviews and competency tests to determine who gets to stay. We were on strike on Tuesday 26 June and the only good thing to have come out of this is the realisation that staff are going to support each other and face this together.

In other news, we had a great north-west long nineteenth-century seminar last Wednesday. It was really well attended, with some great papers, and some good discussions in the seminar and in the pub afterwards.

Since Friday though, I’ve been working full-time on my book, which is due in at the end of this month. It’s a real relief to be able to work on it every day for a few weeks. I haven’t had that kind of time to devote it to it for a long time. It is really difficult to write an extended piece (like a 90,000 word book) alongside all of the other tasks that we are asked to do. This year, as has happened in other years, I won’t be taking all of my holiday entitlement because I simply don’t have the time. This is pretty outrageous I think and I’m sure this would be a surprise to the public, who seem to think that we have the three months off that the students have. The good news is that – at present – I’m enjoying the process of finishing, while being very nervous about how it will turn out. Everyone around me is helping me: my mum is proof reading; my brother is putting chapters into the publisher’s house style, my partner is sorting out my footnotes. I’ve chosen the cover image now too from Wellcome images, but I’ll let that remain a surprise…

It’s nice to be back online and if you’ve missed hearing about what’s going on, I shall endeavour to keep the blog up to date from now on!

Best,

Sharon

Blog post from 31 March 2012

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Dear blog,
What follows below is a blog post written in 31st March but which couldn’t be published till now because the University took all the blogs down. More recent blog to follow…
So, the University of Salford announced 65 redundancies across the University yesterday and 3 of these will be in English. These are horrible times, with people being asked to reapply for their jobs, go for interviews, and whoever is still around after this process will be asked to teach more than we are at present. We’re trying to see if there’s a way to stick together in all of this and present a united front, instead of being pitted against each other.

I was in the British Library for much of the past week, reading stuff that the libraries in Manchester don’t have and which I need to have read for my book. One fascinating activity was comparing Coleridge’s notes to Humphry Davy’s Syllabus for a Course of Lectures. Coleridge attended Davy’s lectures in 1802 and the Syllabus gives us some idea of the topics covered. Coleridge’s notes show how interested he was in the subject and he often notes the experiments that Davy used to explain things. One brilliant line in his notes: ‘If all aristocrats here how easily Davy might poison them all’… I also spent a lovely morning reading Davy’s notebooks, checking quotations and discovering afresh how much there is in them. For now though, I need to stop work on the book and write the article I’ve promised on Frankenstein and natural history to a special edition of a journal.

I spent yesterday interviewing candidates for the AHRC doctoral award we have in English. It was really excellent to see all the different projects that people are proposing and to speak to some really bright and engaged students.

Professor Ian Haywood came to Salford last Wednesday to speak about his latest project on caricature. He had some brilliant material to discuss and there was a small but select audience to listen to his ideas and ask questions.

While in London I saw In Basildon, by David Eldridge, at the Royal Court, which brought back lots of memories of Essex life for me. I also saw the Jeremy Deller retrospective and David Shrigley exhibition at the Haywood Gallery. Deller was my favourite by a street; he’s so politically engaged and thought-provoking.

More soon,

Sharon

Talks, more talks, and even more talks

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Dear blog,

I’ve not managed to update this for a month; I’ve just been too busy. The highlights of the last month include giving a talk on Silas Marner to Salford City College on 28th February, which was well attended by lots of bright A-level students. I also gave a presentation to Rick Rylance (head of the Arts and Humanities Research Board) when he came to visit Media City on 2nd March. This was quite terrifying but seemed to go well and it was good to hear about the AHRC’s strategy for future funding. We have shortlisted for the AHRC-funded studentship in English literature and interviews are being held for that soon. The Donald Cardwell Memorial Lecture was hosted at Salford University on 6 March and Prof Otto Sibum gave a wonderful lecture on James Joule’s experimental method. Salford Uni has bought James Joules’s house on Acton Square and we able to go in and see some of Joules’s equipment which the Museum of Science and Industry have loaned.

On 7th March I gave a research seminar at the University of Leeds on Davy. There was a tough audience with tough questions that I don’t think I was hugely successful in answering. It was lovely to see an ex-Bangor student who I taught all those years ago and who is now doing a PhD in Leeds, and to see a LitSciMedder, Darren Wagner from York University.

I’ve been to lots of plays too: Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen in Sheffield (excellent), Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls in Leeds (also excellent), and Travelling Light in Manchester (a bit rubbish). We held the second session of the Humanities Doctoral Training in Salford on Wednesday and we talked over some important issues for postgrads: how to get a job, how to get your thesis published, how to conduct interviews as part of research, and (a session I was particularly interested in) Maggie Scott speaking about the Oxford English Dictionary, telling us about the various editions and its aim to describe rather than proscribe language use in the UK.

It’s been pretty mad and all to the detriment of my book, which I have neglected somewhat. Here’s hoping that the next blog post I write I’ll be able to say that I’ve been working hard on it.

A few plugs finally: we have another AHRC doctoral studentship just advertised. It’s in collaboration with the Working-Class Movement Library (http://www.wcml.org.uk/) and its concerns ‘Political Cultures in British Trade Unionism, 1931-79’. Enquiries should be made to Professor John Callaghan (j.callaghan@salford.ac.uk) or Dr Ben Harker (b.harker@salford.ac.uk).

All best,

Sharon

Berlin, the Royal Society, and Davy’s ‘Life’

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Dear blog,

I’m just back from a four-day break in Berlin, which was absolutely brilliant. I went to lots of tiny, contemporary art galleries as well as some of the larger national ones. There is so much going on there and it was very exciting to get a glimpse of a such a vibrant cultural world.

I’ve been asked to do one of the Royal Society’s lunchtime talks in the autumn, which are mostly attended by members of the public rather than academics. The organizer is particularly interested in the material I’ve been writing about Mary Wollstonecraft so I think I will do something on that. I’m on sabbatical next semester, which I’m looking forward to very much, so will have more time to think about how to give a paper that is accessible and interesting to the public.

I’ve also negotiated a book contract with Palgrave Macmillan for the publication of my next monograph, ‘Creating Romanticism: Case Studies in the Literature, Science and Medicine of the 1790s’, which is brilliant. I enjoyed working with Palgrave Macmillan (and the Commissioning Editor, Paula Kennedy) very much for Shelley and Vitality and Teaching Romanticism. Now I just have to find the time to finally finish the book.

I’m working in the Portico today, a beautiful library, which has many of the books that I need for the chapter I’m writing on Davy at the moment. I’m currently grappling with his poem ‘Life’, which seems first to have been written in a notebook (now in the Royal Institution), was commented upon by Coleridge in a letter of 9 October 1800, and changed in consequence. John Davy published it in his Memoirs in 1836 under the title ‘Written after Recovery from a Dangerous Illness’ (referring to Davy’s illness of 1808). Last year, though, I found another version, which Davy published anonymously in a collection edited by Joanna Baillie, called ‘Life’, in 1823. I’m going to look at these poems for evidence of something Davy called the most ‘sublime’ idea of all: that matter changes into other states and other forms.

All best,

Sharon

Reflections for a new Preface

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Dear blog,

I’m in the British Library, which is bliss, writing the new Preface to a paperback edition of my first book, Shelley and Vitality, which Palgrave Macmillan are going to publish this year. I’ve been asked to reflect upon all that has happened in the world of Romantic literature and science since the book was first published in 2005. So much has happened that it will be impossible to cover it all and I am not going to attempt to. Suffice to say that when I wrote the introduction to the book all those years ago, it was necessary still to argue the case that many Romantic writers were in fact interested in and engaged with science, but now this is (at least in the academic world) well known. Since 2005 we’ve seen the flourishing of the sub- or inter-discipline of literature and science in the UK, clearly indicated in the formation of the British Society for Literature (2006) (http://www.bsls.ac.uk/), the Journal for Literature and Science (2007) (http://literatureandscience.research.glam.ac.uk/journal/), the choice of Literature and Science for the English Association’s journal Essays and Studies (2008), and the AHRC has declared ‘Science in Culture’ one of its four emerging themes. This all bodes well for the continuing growth and development of an exciting area of research.

I gave a research paper yesterday at Edge Hill University and there was a great turnout of enthusiastic undergraduate students of Romanticism. I talked about the potential links between sublimation (the chemical process), which Coleridge applies to the poetic imagination in Biographia Literaria and the sublime (the aesthetic category), which Humphry Davy uses to describe science as well as the natural landscape. The paper was part of an excellent series that has seen many great speakers over the past year and it was lovely to be invited to be part of it.

I was interested to read John Pilger in the New Statesmen recently, lamenting the lack of any radical literary voice today and comparing this to writers of past times: ‘No Orwell warns that we do not need to live in a totalitarian society to be corrupted by totalitarianism. No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake proffers a vision, no Wilde reminds us that “disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue.”’

Finally, I wanted to urge people to watch the following You Tube video, part of the ‘We Are Frankenstein’ project of Keith M. Collis. This video is the final song of the play sung by the Creature to the Ship Captain following Victor’s death: http://youtu.be/5F-O_JGsPgA

All best,

Sharon

Footnotes and Findings

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Dear blog,

I’ve had an interesting day today mostly writing my chapter on Davy (there was an initial hour and a half spent fielding emails of course). Things I have found out today: according to Joseph Cottle (Bristol publisher of the Lyrical Ballads), Davy gave him a copy of James Currie’s Life of Burns before he left for the Royal Institution. This is an interesting text and it’s no real surprise to know that Davy knew of it, though I’m not sure how to read the significance of his giving it as a gift. Nigel Leask, Daniel Sanjiv Roberts, and Jane Darcy have all individually written really great essays about this book, which presents Burns as an archetype of the medical theories of surgeon John Brown and the philosophy of David Hume, and which have been explored for their influence upon Wordsworth’s ‘Advertisement’ and ‘Preface’ in the Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge even went to visit James Currie in July 1800 and Davy’s gift of the book reasserts its importance to this circle. I need to mull this over some more.

I’ve also thought again about the fact that some of Davy’s books are published by the radical dissenter Joseph Johnson. This places him in a politically radical circle when he moved to London; there’s nothing new in that, but William Godwin’s diaries show that he continues to attend Johnson’s dinners (perhaps only sporadically) into the 1800s. Davy dines there even in the year of Johnson’s death in 1809. You can see this and lots of brilliantly interesting detail about who William Godwin saw, dined with and read during his life, as well as information about his various medical ailments and treatments online now at: http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Tantalizingly, there’s evidence in a letter dated 1 January 1800 that Coleridge undertook some negotiation on Davy’s behalf for the publication of ‘a Volume’ with Longman, though it is impossible to tell whether this might be a volume of poems. He tells Davy ‘you may of course begin printing when you like. All the tradesman part of the Business Longman will settle with Biggs and Cottle’ (Letters, i, 556). This follows the pattern of other books produced by this circle, including the Lyrical Ballads, which was printed by Biggs and Cottle in Bristol for Longman. Thomas Longman began buying Cottle’s copyright in 1800 after he had retired from business (DNB).

So, it’s been a day of research and footnotes, which I quite enjoy to be honest. I also have a larger argument for the whole chapter now, which I’m trying out to see whether it works.

In other news, I was pleased to hear that my paper has been accepted for the British Society for Literature and Science conference (http://www.bsls.ac.uk/). The conference is in Oxford in April. I’m getting a bit nervous now about the coming semester, where on top of my teaching, I’m giving no less than six research papers (two in Oxford, also in York, Leeds, Edge Hill, and Sheffield). At least I have had a bit of time before term started to develop the ideas that I’m planning to present.

All best,

Sharon

Christmas books and a New Year seminar

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Dear blog,

It’s back to work then after the Christmas break. It was the North-West Long Nineteenth-Century seminar on Wednesday 4th January at the City Library in Deansgate. The speakers were Alan Rawes (University of Manchester) on ‘The Triumph of Life’s “compelling rhyme schemes”’, Deaglan O’ Donghaile (University of Salford) on “Oscar Wilde and Empire”, Paul Craddock (London Consortium) on ‘Transfusion and Vital Principles in the Early Nineteenth Century’ and Gary Butler (Manchester University) on ‘Rightful Places and Useful Places: The John Rylands Library and the Place of the Book in Late-Victorian Manchester’.

I enjoyed Alan’s paper hugely; it was lovely to get back to thinking about Percy Shelley’s last poem ‘The Triumph of Life’ and Derridean approaches to the poem. I haven’t thought about this stuff since my PhD really. Shelley is so suggestive for deconstructionist readings (there are some wonderful essays by Paul de Man, Tilottama Rajan, J. Hillis Miller) and I’m always left thinking that Shelley himself would have been interested in what these readings achieve. My colleague, Deaglan, gave a taster of the new research he’s been doing at the Clark Library in California on Oscar Wilde. It seems that Wilde was a closet (and not so closet) Feenian and his political statements and connections were teased out in Deaglan’s paper. Paul spoke about James Blundell, who is widely credited with performing the first successful blood transfusion in 1818. Paul argued that the instruments developed for such operations suggest a belief in a vitalist understanding of life, where it was the quality or essence of blood that needed to be replaced rather than an exact quantity of blood. It was a shame that for Gary’s paper we weren’t in the John Rylands Library (which were were in October last year) since he focused on the light fittings in this building, arguing that they demonstrated a deliberate aesthetic ideology on the part of Mrs Ryland. The Rylands Library is such a beautiful building and Gary’s talk made me keen to pay more attention to the detail of its construction. I urge everyone who can to go to see it, and visit the standing Treasure’s exhibition, as well as they historic reading rooms (http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/deansgate/).

Over Christmas I read some brilliant books: Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot is such a thrill for those of us who love books, especially Austen and Gaskell, as we as the literary theory of Roland Barthes. I was bought a few beautiful Persephone Books as Christmas presents (http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/). This press publishes neglected women writers of the twentieth century. I read The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Lanski, a brilliantly chilling tale about a modern, new woman of the early twentieth century who taking a nap on a chaise-longue wakes up to find herself inhabiting the body of a Victorian woman. The novel sets itself interesting parameters: the lead character can think but not articulate ideas and objects that have not been invented yet (penicillin, washing machines, automobiles) and which would prove that she came from the future. Her dawning realization that the TB she is suffering from is fatal in the Victorian period is truly scary.

Exam season starts on Monday and I’ll be marking for the next few weeks though I’m hoping still to get some work done on my book. More soon…

All best,

Sharon

 

Nitrous oxide escapades

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Dear blog,

This is my last post before the Christmas holiday. I have only one day left of work and then am on holiday until Wednesday 4th January, when we have our next North-West Long Nineteenth-Century Seminar at Manchester’s City Library on Deansgate.

It was good to finish teaching on the 16th December and this week I’ve been able to return to my book, which has been neglected over the past weeks in favour of marking and other tasks. I spent a glorious three hours at the Portico Library (http://www.theportico.org.uk/Home.html) in the last week of term reading John Davy’s Memoirs of Sir Humphry Davy (1836) and trying to get back into the swing of things. Since then I’ve been working on my fourth chapter, on Davy and the sublime. I’ve been reading Davy’s and Thomas Beddoes’s accounts of the nitrous oxide experiments in Bristol (1799-1800), which are brilliant and often hilariously funny. It is quite clear that Davy was hooked on the gas. He describes taking it recreationally, such as when he goes for a moonlit walk along the Avon with a ‘green bag’ of the gas with him. He speaks of experiments when he drinks a bottle of wine in a matter of seconds and then breathes the gas, to see what the effects are (he promptly throws up). He tells us that he likes to take the gas alone and in the dark and that the sight of someone with an ‘air-bag’ makes him long to take the gas himself. Of course, this is all in the name of science!

I have made a small discovery too, which others seem not to have noticed. Anna and Rochemont Barbauld were among those in these nitrous oxide trials, as described by Beddoes in his early publication Notice of Some Observations Made at the Pneumatic Institution (1799). It is not perhaps surprising, given Beddoes’s associations with Priestley and others, and her account of the effects (as reported by Beddoes) may have been overlooked because she doesn’t seem to be represented in Davy’s account (Researches, 1800).

Anyway, have a lovely Christmas and New Year! More in 2012.

Sx