Olivia K.

Highlight of my term so far: teaching with the wonderful Rogers collection of nineteenth-century children’s literature, folklore and fairytales @NewnhamLibrary yesterday 🦉

Deadline next Friday!

‘The Tripos examination lasting 6 hours a day for 6 days, was so terribly exhausting that I felt that nothing would have induced me to go in for it if I had realised what it would be’ Constance Garnett on sitting exams in 1883. Congratulations to all my students finishing today!

Term’s over, sun’s out, back to research. Today’s tidbit: E. M. Forster’s New Year’s resolutions on the cusp of 1905, just before the publication of his first novel.

If you are a PGR or ECR, working with RRR is great experience - we are a friendly bunch (and we do our best to get you a physical review copy/comp tickets). I am still really keen to get a review of a theatre performance and/or conference. Please share widely!

Big thank you to @ChawtonHouse for hosting our English first years today! What a treat to see the first ever Mary Robinson exhibition! @LucyCavColl

@Leodora_ I think it’s my favourite of hers yet

My first read of 2025! Cheating because I started it in sunnier climes in 2024, but it's really very good. The portrayal of grief, family and love is just 👌 #Intermezzo

Ideal Sunday read, on the journey to decode this portrait of Francis Williams & the ‘small, furry white blob’ in the sky behind him. Should be a film with interlocking storylines in 18th century & today! lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

The language of flowers seems to be making a resurgence! Spotted in Heffers

I've opened my Etsy shop for: 🌿botanical calendars to arrive in Jan 🐚a few of my limited edition art prints 🪶jewellery orders for🌲(UK only) 🌸vouchers for my jewellery designs(rest of world) My prints & calendars are designed to improve mental health: etsy.com/uk/shop/silver…

Should also say that the recent @Sadlers_Wells Pina Bausch / Germaine Acogny & Malou Airaudo The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] was one of my performance highlights of the year!

Final teaching week of the year off to a great start with an appropriately lively discussion of the 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring (featuring re-constructed Nijinsky choreography!) and chocolate treats from a sweet student

@bigdybbukenergy Watched a play recently about Dr Linda Hazzard’s Fasting for the Cure of Disease. 1908. Have we learned nothing

Really thrilled to have won this year’s Hamilton Prize and to have some of my PhD research out in Victorian Review soon!

What a lovely, sunny first day at work

Dog detail from the current Grayson Perry exhibition at Pitzhanger Manor

@thesianround @SU_EngLit_CW @LeverhulmeTrust Congrats Sian! So exciting

Today is my last day as a lecturer at Cardiff. In October, I'll be hopping along the South Wales coast to @SU_EngLit_CW where I'll be a @LeverhulmeTrust Early Career Fellow for the next three years!

Finally got through Septology and visited Norway this summer and oh, were both worth the wait

A trio of medieval hounds for #WorldDogDay. They live in this Cambridge University Library bestiary, a medieval book of beasts (real and imaginary!). You can see this extraordinary book close-up in the #CambridgeDigitalLibrary: cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-II-000…

HBD to Thomas De Quincey, a fellow lover of… tea: ‘tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally of coarse nerves, will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual’