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chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
Chloe Wigston Smith
@chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
3.4K followers 820 following 120 posts
Prof of eighteenth-century studies in York | material culture studies, women’s work and the Atlantic world | print culture & dress history | trying at social media

📚Novels, Needleworks & Empire https://yalebooks.yale.edu/9780300270785/novels-needleworks-a
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chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
All things Turner in 2025 this Friday 23 January. Details below.
cecs-york.bsky.social Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · 1d
Join CECS & HECAA for an online conversation about #Turner in 2025. CECS staff @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social & Richard Johns will discuss the #AustenTurner exhibition, and be joined by Lucinda Lax at the Yale Centre for British Art and Melissa Gustin at the Walker Art Gallery. 1/2
January 21, 2026 at 10:15 AM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
👀 a 30% discount on my book & including postage in the UK 📚
yalebooks.bsky.social Yale University Press London 📖 @yalebooks.bsky.social · 5d
Take 30% off selected 18th century history titles until 31.1.2026 - including books by @fourredshoes.bsky.social and @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social.

Includes free postage in the UK!

Browse online here: yalebooks.co.uk/bsecs26/
January 17, 2026 at 6:22 AM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
Such an honour to present this keynote to an audience of brilliant #18thcentury scholars.
bsecs.bsky.social BSECS @bsecs.bsky.social · 14d
The Pichette Auditorium is packed for @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social's key note address 'Thinking With and Again Small Things' at #BSECS2026
#skystorians #18thC 🗃️
A large screen with the title of the paper, and an audience seated on tiered chairs.
January 8, 2026 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
yalebooks.bsky.social
@bsecs.bsky.social conference is in full swing and we have 30% off select 18th century history titles. Come along to the Farthings Cafe or browse online: yalebooks.co.uk/bsecs26/

#BSECS2026 #skystorians #18thC 🗃️
Image of our bookshelf filled with 18th Century Studies titles at the BSECS 2026 Conference
January 8, 2026 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
cecs-york.bsky.social
Happy New Year from CECS! Please enjoy these pictures of the snow dusted topiary garden behind our home in Heslington Hall from this morning. May your year be suitably sprinkled with fresh ideas about the eighteenth century and bright paths forward in your research ❄️🌳❄️ #UKsnow #18thCentury
The 18th century topiary garden at CECS York, with a sculpture, pond and paving stones in front of it, dusted in snow. A path in snow, next to the 18th century brick wall that runs behind the topiary garden.
January 5, 2026 at 5:43 PM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
After many months of work & planning, I’m so pleased that the CECS art wall is now a reality.
cecs-york.bsky.social Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · Dec 19
Last week was a big week for CECS at York! We launched our #18thCentury (a very long one) art wall at our new home in Heslington Hall, with help from the Univ of York’s art curator @helenacoxcurator.bsky.social. York’s VC Charlie Jeffery joined us to toast our wall and cut a festive red ribbon.
December 19, 2025 at 11:17 AM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
What a dream to co-author this article with the one & only @jenniebatchelor.bsky.social
jenniebatchelor.bsky.social Jennie Batchelor @jenniebatchelor.bsky.social · Dec 16
Also for the Austen 250th, @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social and I are thrilled our article about Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter is published today in a very special issue of Persuasions On-Line. Working on this exhibition was the highlight of my year. jasna.org/publications...
A watercolour of a woman with a black and grey gown (seated) facing away from the viewer. A man in a dark coat stands over her. JMW Turner, Two Figures (1827).
December 16, 2025 at 4:09 PM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
Oh, I do know the answer to this one…
cecs-york.bsky.social Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · Dec 9
👀 hmmm…I wonder what this pile of carefully wrapped items might be? 🧐
Artworks carefully wrapped up and resting on an office floor.
December 9, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
cecs-york.bsky.social
It’s been great to have Dr Rachael Scarborough King @rscar.bsky.social with us at CECS this semester as our @britishacademy.bsky.social International Visiting Fellow. Last week Rachael ran a fantastic digital humanities session for our postgraduates, looking at items in York’s Borthwick Archives:
Map of the atient and modern history of York Title page to Wollstoncraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, second edition 1792 Page of the diary of Mary Ann York, 1795, 31 December Bargain and sale for Lincoln’s playhouse, 15 October 1706
December 9, 2025 at 4:29 PM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
US & Canadian friends, Yale University Press is running 30% sitewide sale through December 5th using the discount code GIFT30: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
Novels, Needleworks, and Empire
The first sustained study of the vibrant links between domestic craft and British colonialism  Finalist, Susanne M. Glasscock Book Prize   In the eighteent...
yalebooks.yale.edu
November 25, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
cecs-york.bsky.social
TODAY! We’re looking forward to this in-person CECS seminar with the always wonderful Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth @carolinemccaff.bsky.social
cecs-york.bsky.social Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · Nov 19
📢 Our next seminar is scheduled for Tuesday 25 November with Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth @carolinemccaff.bsky.social,
presenting a paper on ‘James Tassie: A Maker of the Scottish Enlightenment’.
🗓️ Tuesday 25 November, 5pm
📍 HG/09, Heslington Hall

www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c...
James Tassie: A Maker of the Scottish Enlightenment - Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York
Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth discusses the modeller, collector, inventor and businessman James Tassie.
www.york.ac.uk
November 25, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
cecs-york.bsky.social
TODAY! We’re very excited at CECS to hear from Dr Rachael King, our British Academy International Visiting Fellow this autumn.
November 11, 2025 at 10:37 AM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
For colleagues in the UK: Yale UP is running a 50% discount through November, using the promo code FIFTY. Lots of books at much better prices, including my own: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...
Novels, Needleworks, and Empire - Yale University Press London
The first sustained study of the vibrant links between domestic craft and British colonialism  Finalist, Susanne M. Glasscock Book Prize   In the e...
yalebooks.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 10:01 AM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
It was a fantastic 3 days in Liverpool at the conference, ‘Terraqueous Globe: Land & Sea in the Age of Sterne’. Well done to the organizers and contributors! I gave a keynote on transatlantic material Marias, with unintended shopping consequences 👇🏻
dreedhistory.bsky.social Daniel Reed @dreedhistory.bsky.social · Nov 8
what would a Sterne conference be without subplots and serendipity? After hearing @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social fascinating keynote about the author and transatlantic material culture, I stumbled across this 1779 Angelica Kauffman print of Maria… thank/blame the fates
1779 Angelica Kauffman print of ‘Maria’ MS commentary on Maria (c1768)
November 10, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
maryfairclough.bsky.social
I'm talking about Anna Laetitia Barbauld again tomorrow! 🗣️🗣️🗣️York Georgian Society lecture: more details here: www.georgianyork.org.uk/events-1/ann...
Anna Laetita Barbauld, eighteenth-century polymath, two-hundred years on | My Site
www.georgianyork.org.uk
November 7, 2025 at 12:25 PM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
Very much looking forward to this CECS research seminar 📜
November 4, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
maryfairclough.bsky.social
Looking forward to delivering the Annual Dr Williams's Lecture tomorrow at Senate House, London: Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Dissenting Hymns 🗣️🗣️🗣️
cecs-york.bsky.social Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · Oct 20
📢 Bookings are open for the 2025 Annual Dr Williams’s Lecture, delivered by our own Prof Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social at CECS & @uoyenglishrl.bsky.social

Book your place for this exciting event on 29 October at the School of Advanced Study, London:
www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
Annual Dr Williams’s Lecture 2025 | Anna Laetita Barbauld and Dissenting Hymns
www.sas.ac.uk
October 28, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
titachico.bsky.social
Always a dream to publish with @publicbooks.bsky.social. An amazing team with some of the greatest editorial engagement around.

My many thanks, too, to Marlene Daut for commissioning my essay on the extraordinary "I'll Be Back!" by Hope Strickland.
October 27, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
cecs-york.bsky.social
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Many congratulations to CECS MA student Elizabeth Riddick, who has won first prize in the JASNA essay contest, for her essay on ‘An Open and Shut Case(ment): The Form and Function of Windows in Jane Austen’s Novels’ ⭐️⭐️⭐️
MA student Elizabeth Riddick wins first prize in the JASNA essay contest
Congratulations Elizabeth!
www.york.ac.uk
October 22, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
cecs-york.bsky.social
📢 Bookings are open for the 2025 Annual Dr Williams’s Lecture, delivered by our own Prof Mary Fairclough @maryfairclough.bsky.social at CECS & @uoyenglishrl.bsky.social

Book your place for this exciting event on 29 October at the School of Advanced Study, London:
www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
Annual Dr Williams’s Lecture 2025 | Anna Laetita Barbauld and Dissenting Hymns
www.sas.ac.uk
October 20, 2025 at 4:29 PM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
What a good Tuesday is in store!
cecs-york.bsky.social Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · Oct 14
📣 It’s research seminar day! Join us at 5pm to welcome Dr Rachael King (UC Santa Barbara) who will present a paper titled ‘Care Networks in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Archives’.
🗓️ Tuesday 14 October, 5.00pm
📍 HG/09, Heslington Hall
More info: www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c...
Care Networks in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Archives - Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York
Rachael King, our British Academy International Fellow, discusses the ethics of care.
www.york.ac.uk
October 14, 2025 at 7:02 AM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
cecs-york.bsky.social
Join us tomorrow for our first research seminar of the year! Our very own Prof Mary Fairclough will be presenting a paper titled ‘Mary Wollstonecraft: Apostrophe, Prayer and Voice’.
🗓️ Tuesday 7 October, 5pm
📍 HG/09, Heslington Hall
More info: www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c...
Mary Wollstonecraft: Apostrophe, Prayer and Voice - Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York
Mary Fairclough develops a new approach to Mary Wollstonecraft's rhetoric of devotional feeling.
www.york.ac.uk
October 6, 2025 at 11:52 AM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
More #AustenandTurner love! Thank you Susannah!
susannah-lw.bsky.social Susannah Lyon-Whaley @susannah-lw.bsky.social · Sep 26
Back into research after attending Attingham Trust's 'New Perspectives in Country Houses' course, and channelling Jane (photo from the amazing Austen/Turner exhibition at Harewood House, in collaboration with @cecs-york.bsky.social @jenniebatchelor.bsky.social @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social )
September 26, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Chloe Wigston Smith
jenniebatchelor.bsky.social
Today was the last session of the Jane Austen Book Club at Harewood House. led by @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social and me to run alongside Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter exhibition. Today, we spent a lot of time talking (amongst other things) about silence. #AustenandTurner #Austen250
A glass case in front of a fireplace. The case contains three volumes of the first edition of Mansfield Park. Above the case, hangs a banner with a quotation from Mansfield Park in which Fanny Price is recalled to have asked a question about the slave trade that is met with a dead silence.
September 10, 2025 at 8:21 PM
chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social
I’m a happy camper to have @zugenia.bsky.social ‘s new book A Funny Thing to look forward to reading!
Photo of book A Funny Thing in front of the historic buildings of King’s Manor in York.
August 14, 2025 at 4:03 PM