‘Does anybody have that fic…?’: The fannish reclamation of the circulating library

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-17
Author(s):  
Alex Xanthoudakis
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Preservation ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
Reading Habits ◽  
The Face ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Over Time

Associated with frivolous reading and moral repugnance, eighteenth-century circulating libraries provided women and members of the working class easy access to novels. Almost three centuries later, fans who create and own private, file-based collections of fanfiction have reclaimed the circulating library structure. Now used to preserve the very kinds of content Victorian detractors were so against by the communities they feared would be corrupted, transformative fans (mostly women and queer folx) share copies of works from their personal collections to interested readers. These serve the dual function of archiving fic for pleasure on the part of the collector, as well as storing a stable format of the work – one that is less likely to be made obsolete. Because fans do not expect these files to be returned, a private fic collection is therefore not a library at all, but an archive, one that is dependent on individual taste but connected to the community through a network of endless copying, gifting and regifting. Therefore, studying these fic collections not only gives us insight into fannish reading habits over time but also points to strategies of archiving and cultural preservation in the face of technological debt.

scholarly journals Annotator as Ordinary Reader: Accuracy, Relevance, and Editorial Method

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 42-69
Author(s):  
Michael Edson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Reading Habits ◽  
Early Readers ◽  
Annotated Edition ◽  
Insight Into

As the first annotated edition of Churchill’s poetry, William Tooke’s 1804 Poetical Works of Charles Churchill offers insight into the reading practices specific to eighteenth-century verse satire and beyond. Drawing information from widely-circulated periodical sources rather than the author-proximate documents favored by most annotators today, Tooke reveals the suspect modern assumption that satires held the same meanings for early readers as authors intended. Building on the reader-centered approach behind Tooke’s apparatus, this essay argues that the lingering intentionalist bent of modern explicatory editing distorts the information available to past readers, the identities ascribed to allusions, and the uses assigned to past texts. In Churchill’s case, such annotation obscures his links to the print-driven scandal culture of the 1760s, a culture in which identifying allusion displays one’s mastery of gossip. Ultimately, Tooke raises questions about the continued editorial allegiance to intentionalist ideas of accuracy and relevancy, questions that can be extended to the editing of texts from many genres and times. He implies that, while early scholarly apparatuses may not meet today’s standards, they nonetheless offer information about reading habits, insights often more historically accurate than what is gleaned from modern editions.

Publicans Between the State and the Brewers: A Subordinate Relationship

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Lane
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effect ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Customer Base ◽  
And Control ◽  
Over Time

Throughout most of the period covered in this book, establishments that sell alcohol consumed on the premises have had regulation imposed on them. Regulation and control have weighed more heavily on pubs than on the other two types of hostelries and, given their chief customer base, on the working class. Another state instrument to weaken pubs has been high taxation. The conditions for running pubs and publicans’ livelihoods were just as strongly influenced by the giant breweries as they were by state regulation and taxation. Particular attention is paid to the ‘tied houses’ system from the early eighteenth century onwards and to the more recent Beer Orders Act (1989). Over time, this Act had the effect of substituting the tie of pubs to breweries with that of pub companies. The ensuing dependence of tenants and the adverse effect on their livelihoods is viewed as contributing to the large-scale pub closures in the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals BETWEEN POISE AND POWER: EMBODIED MANLINESS IN EIGHTEENTH- AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH CULTURE

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 125-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Begiato
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Masculine Identity ◽  
Different Types ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Embodied Selfhood ◽  
British Culture ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Ideal

ABSTRACTThis paper explores representations of the manly body and the ways in which its relationship with masculine identity and embodied selfhood changed over time and class. It spans a period in which different types of masculinities were dominant, from the later eighteenth-century man of feeling to the later nineteenth-century muscular Christian, and proposes that an embodied approach offers a more nuanced consideration of the ways in which ideals of masculinity were culturally viewed and utilised. First, it provides a chronology of the manner in which the ideal manly body changed over the two centuries, demonstrating that abstract masculine values were always rooted in male bodies. Secondly, it proposes that although most idealised masculine identities were elite, attention to the more corporeal aspects of gender offers evidence that there were features of the manly body, for example hardness, that appealed across social ranks.1Elite men valorised idealised working-class men's bodies and saw in them something to emulate. Moreover, working-class men used classically inspired figures to represent themselves when formulating class and gender identities.

Regret in the Face of Bereavement: Adaptation to Loss Over Time

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky Newton ◽  
Cynthia Torges ◽  
Abigail Stewart ◽  
Susan Nolen-Hoeksema
Keyword(s):  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

Clothing in Context — Nineteenth-Century Dress and Textiles in the Thomas Hardy Archive

Costume ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Thomas Hardy ◽  
Famous People ◽  
Tess Of The D'urbervilles ◽  
Textiles And Clothing ◽  
Insight Into

This article will consider how dress, textiles, manuscripts and images in the Thomas Hardy Archive illuminate his writing and reveal the accuracy of his descriptions of clothing in novels including Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Rural clothing, fashionable styles, drawings and illustrations will shed new light on his writing through providing an insight into the people's dress he described so eloquently in his writing. The textiles and clothing in the Archive are also significant as nineteenth-century working-class dress is relatively rare. Everyday rural clothing does not tend to survive, so a collection belonging to Hardy's family of country stonemasons provides new opportunities for research in this area. Even more unusual is clothing reliably provenanced to famous people or writers, and such garments that do exist tend to be from the middle or upper classes. This article will show how the combination of surviving dress, biographical context and literary framework enriches understanding of Hardy's words and informs research into nineteenth-century rural dress.

The Relationship between Seeker and Spiritual Guide as portrayed in contemporary Western Sufi Autobiographies

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-332
Author(s):  
Kate Zebiri
Keyword(s):  
Life Writing ◽  
New Age ◽  
The Self ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Continuity And Discontinuity

This article aims to explore the Shaykh-mur?d (disciple) or teacher-pupil relationship as portrayed in Western Sufi life writing in recent decades, observing elements of continuity and discontinuity with classical Sufism. Additionally, it traces the influence on the texts of certain developments in religiosity in contemporary Western societies, especially New Age understandings of religious authority. Studying these works will provide an insight into the diversity of expressions of contemporary Sufism, while shedding light on a phenomenon which seems to fly in the face of contemporary social and religious trends which deemphasize external authority and promote the authority of the self or individual autonomy.

Conventions and temporal differences in painted faces: A study of posture and color distribution

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (11) ◽  
pp. 267-1-267-8
Author(s):  
Mitchell J.P. van Zuijlen ◽  
Sylvia C. Pont ◽  
Maarten W.A. Wijntjes
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Art Galleries ◽  
Art Collections ◽  
Color Distribution ◽  
Scientific Domain ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

The human face is a popular motif in art and depictions of faces can be found throughout history in nearly every culture. Artists have mastered the depiction of faces after employing careful experimentation using the relatively limited means of paints and oils. Many of the results of these experimentations are now available to the scientific domain due to the digitization of large art collections. In this paper we study the depiction of the face throughout history. We used an automated facial detection network to detect a set of 11,659 faces in 15,534 predominately western artworks, from 6 international, digitized art galleries. We analyzed the pose and color of these faces and related those to changes over time and gender differences. We find a number of previously known conventions, such as the convention of depicting the left cheek for females and vice versa for males, as well as unknown conventions, such as the convention of females to be depicted looking slightly down. Our set of faces will be released to the scientific community for further study.

The New Economic Populism and the Future of Inequality in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Income Disparities ◽  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

The authors conclude the book by recapping their arguments and empirical results, and discussing the possibilities for the “new economic populism” to promote egalitarian economic outcomes in the face of continuing gridlock and the dominance of Washington, DC’s policymaking institutions by business and the wealthy, and a conservative Republican Party. Many states are actually addressing inequality now, and these policies are working. Admittedly, many states also continue to embrace the policies that have contributed to growing inequality, such as tax cuts for the wealthy or attempting to weaken labor unions. But as the public grows more concerned about inequality, the authors argue, policies that help to address these income disparities will become more popular, and policies that exacerbate inequality will become less so. Over time, if history is a guide, more egalitarian policies will spread across the states, and ultimately to the federal government.

We're Still Here

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Silva
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Search For Meaning ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Face ◽  
Depth Interviews

The economy has been brutal to American workers. The chance to provide a better life for one’s children—the promise at the heart of the American Dream—is slipping away. In the face of soaring economic inequality and mounting despair, we might expect struggling Americans to rise up together and demand their fair share of opportunity. And yet, the groups who stand to gain the most from collective mobilization appear the least motivated to act in their own self-interest. This book examines why disadvantaged people disable themselves politically. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over one hundred black, white, and Puerto Rican residents in a declining coal town in Pennsylvania, We’re Still Here demonstrates that many working-class people are fiercely critical of growing inequality and of the politicians who have failed to protect them from poverty, exploitation, and social exclusion. However, the institutions that historically mediated between personal suffering and collective political struggle have not only become weak, but have become sites of betrayal. In response, working-class people turn inward, cultivating individualized strategies for triumphing over pain. Convinced that democratic processes are rigged in favor of the wealthy, they search for meaning in internet conspiracy theories or the self-help industry—solitary strategies that turn them inward, or turn them against each other. But as visions of a broken America unite people across gender, race, and age, they also give voice to upended hierarchies, creative re-imaginings of economic justice, and yearnings to be part of a collective whole.

Witches and Succubi: Male Sexual Fantasies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serinity Young
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Intercourse ◽  
Sexual Fantasies ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
The Face ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Demonic

Witches, women believed to have supernatural powers, have been with us since ancient times. Often they were beautiful, highly sexual women whom men bedded at their own risk. They had magical powers (including that of flight), communed with the dead, and did not conform to patriarchal ideas of womanhood. Their sexuality led them to be classified as succubi, or female spirits who visited men at night and had sexual intercourse with them while they slept. In medieval Christian Europe, witches were refigured as ugly over time, and they became the face of evil. They were believed to fly to their unholy Sabbaths, where they participated in orgies with Satan and sacrificed babies. In truth, most people who were accused of being witches were women caught up in the changing mores and beliefs of the medieval Church, which began to view women as more susceptible to the demonic than men, a Church that needed evidence of their unholy activities, even if extracted by torture.

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