Rebecca Anne Barr
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rabarr.bsky.social
Rebecca Anne Barr
@rabarr.bsky.social
890 followers 820 following 140 posts
Reading, writing, thinking about the long 18th Century at the Faculty of English @cam.ac.uk‬. Irish woman baffled by the fens and the English middle classes. Emotional support/ emotional manipulation provided by a terrier.
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rabarr.bsky.social
Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · Nov 25
Here's our magnificent cover: a little-known illustration of Richardson's 'Pamela' by Francis Hayman. 'The Elopement' decorated one of the original #Pamela supper-boxes at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Thanks to @nationaltrust.bsky.social who hold the original at Sizergh Castle, Cumbria. #18thcentury
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
regretteruane.bsky.social
Was really struck by what a lovely inspiring exercise this is, like a primary school version of Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it
Page from a 1960s primary school English textbook with a lovely cartoonish illustration of a red haired white girl in blue shirt looking at a cockatoo on a black perch. It is in the centre bottom and takes up about a third of the page, above is black serif text which reads Have you ever noticed? Every day we "see" things without really looking at them at all. On the way to and from school look at just one thing that you have often passed but never looked at very closely - it may be a street lamp, a small plant in a hedgerow, someone's front gate, the wall and windows of an ofice building, the balcony of a house, an object in a shop window. You are a secret service agent, and exact knowledge of this object is your password. Your life depends on it. Learn it by heart, and then describe it to the fellow agent who has to test you by your knowledge.
November 10, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
irishstudiesqub.bsky.social
Global Irish Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship at Notre Dame University. This is open exclusively to scholars of any nationality with a PhD from institutions outside the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland. Scholars working in any area of Irish Studies are encouraged to apply. apply.interfolio.com/176805
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
November 9, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Somewhat astonishingly, here it is, a book, a thing in the world... More, including acknowledgements, soon❤️
The cover of a book. Text reads TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE. The illustration is of black and white embroidery of flowers, fruit, and animals; it's sitting on a blue and white William Morris print cushion. The table of contents of a book. The chapter titles read Stuff, Linen, Leather/Wool, Silk, Inky Cloak, Sew, Cut, Fold, Ruff.
October 31, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
claudewillan.bsky.social
I'm giving what might be the "biggest" talk of my life tomorrow, at Cambridge, and I seem to have written my most certifiably bonkers talk yet for it, about Jacobite poetics and Sean Bonney via Charles Le Brun, called "Non-Literary Beauty?". If you're in Cambridge, come see me in the Eng Dept @ 5pm!
November 5, 2025 at 2:08 PM
rabarr.bsky.social
@claudewillan.bsky.social is at the English Faculty in @cam.ac.uk today at 5pm, speaking on Jacobite poetry in manuscript (1688-1750), & the work of Sean Bonney. This sounds like a 🔥 talk on the limits of permissible speech, materiality, & literary experimentation. @bsecs.bsky.social #18thcentury
November 6, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
nguthrie.bsky.social
Harlequin costume (German, #c18th #c18 #18thc), Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
Wool jacket and trousers with inlaid patchwork in yellow, white green and red with animals embroidered in wool and silk
November 3, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'His book tour brought him to Cambridgeshire, where he would marry and have two children with Susannah Cullen, an Englishwoman from Ely. They settled in Soham, supported by a local network including abolitionist friends, safe...when reactionary “church and king” mobs were targeting reformers.' 1/3
Lost grave of daughter of Black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano found by A-level student
Fitzwilliam Museum has uncovered student’s work from 1977 that revealed Cambridgeshire location of child’s burial place
www.theguardian.com
November 1, 2025 at 8:24 AM
rabarr.bsky.social
Happy Halloween! #Cambridge
October 31, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
ellipticalnight.bsky.social
"The rainy / night, like Debussy." is a perfect break in a perfect line, to me

Éireann Lorsung, from Pattern-book
SIMILE How does a simile work? -Place something next to something and say, here. (The here is where the somethings touch.) The rainy night, like Debussy. There on the shelf, a piece of grapevine in a blue vase. The world is so much like itself it can be hard to see. Tomorrow I will try again to understand: what is a simile? All night, all day: the rain comes in vertical lines, then horizontal lines, like a drawing made on the world I can perceive. How does the simile do whatever it is it does to us? The world is touching the world itself and touching me. My hand, this pencil making all these marks. A drawing of the world that is the world, that I can make. That's making me.
September 21, 2025 at 9:24 PM
rabarr.bsky.social
Editors of the collected #poems of Seamus Heaney, Rosie Laven & Bernard O'Donoghue, in conversation with Josie O'Donoghue this evening @irishstudiescam.bsky.social. Moved to (discreet) tears by BOD's gentle reading of Heaney's 'At the WellHead'. #irishstudies
A woman listening carefully with her head to one side while an older man, her father, speaks. on the screen behind them a further woman, the other editor, also listens intently.
October 28, 2025 at 8:50 PM
rabarr.bsky.social
Looking forward to talking about Eliza Haywood's Tattle Life on 7 November at the GIS Interdisciplinary seminar on Gossip, Scandal, & Sociabilities. Excited to hear Matthew Kinservik's paper on The Duchess of Kingston's 1776 Bigamy Trial as a Social Media Event. Plus, PARIS. 💘 #18thcentury.
GIS Interdisciplinary Seminar: 'Gossip, Scandal and Sociabilities' | gissociabilite
GIS Sociabilités seminar 'The Politics of the ‘Sociable Self: Theories and Practices (1650-1850)' - Seventh thematic session on 'Gossip, Scandal and Sociabilities', 7 November 2025 (17:00 - 19:00) at ...
gis-sociabilites.org
October 28, 2025 at 12:07 PM
rabarr.bsky.social
‪
Great to see Mary Newbould's new book on #Sterne and networks of reception out and open access rom @universitypress.cambridge.org! Lots of rich #18thcentury material here, including oral recitals & naughty Sternean poetry
@shandyhall.bsky.social @lsternetrust.bsky.social
Networks of Reception in the Eighteenth-Century British Press and Laurence Sterne
Cambridge Core - English Literature: General Interest - Networks of Reception in the Eighteenth-Century British Press and Laurence Sterne
www.cambridge.org
October 28, 2025 at 11:09 AM
rabarr.bsky.social
Great review by Prof Elizabeth Kraft. 'Important & compelling critical commentary' on Richardson tied to 'intense political & social concerns of various generations of readers. The 1980s were one such time. Judging by the nature & calibre of the essays in 'Revisiting Richardson', we are in another.'
October 21, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
lwalker.bsky.social
Me: All I want is an adaptation of Frankenstein that deals with the frame narrative.

Guillermo del Toro:

slate.com/culture/2025...
Guillermo del Toro’s Lavish New Movie Breathes Fresh Life Into One of Science Fiction’s Oldest Stories
He gets some help from a lanky Australian heartthrob.
slate.com
October 18, 2025 at 12:18 PM
rabarr.bsky.social
Peak #Cambridge at the Equiano Bridge.
October 18, 2025 at 12:41 PM
rabarr.bsky.social
Mind officially blown: the same student just said she 'can't wait to read 'Grandison': I just love Richardson's writing'. I can die happy now.
rabarr.bsky.social Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · Oct 9
*Clarissa* changes another life! There's hope for the world. #18thcentury #reading
October 17, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
alasmorrison.bsky.social
Daughter #poem of mine now up at the wonderful Porter House Review!
porterhousereview.org/articles/ski...
porterhousereview.org
October 15, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
drjenniferorr.bsky.social
Unfortunately true. As we call it in network science, 'preferential attachment'
marieallitt.bsky.social Dr Marie Allitt @marieallitt.bsky.social · 28d
Academia is a system where it sees someone has 10 pies and gives them 10 more, while the person with no pies continues to go without
October 15, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
titachico.bsky.social
Many thanks to @bristoluni.bsky.social for the Benjamin Meaker Award that supported my collaboration with the inimitable @emmcgirr.bsky.social.

irp.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2025/10/08/p...
Performances of Wonder: Science and Spectacle – University of Bristol International Research Development blog
irp.blogs.bristol.ac.uk
October 14, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
uk.theconversation.com
Why the loss of this species shines light on the global extinction crisis.
Slender-billed curlews are officially extinct – here’s why the loss of these migratory birds really matters
Why the loss of this species shines light on the global extinction crisis.
tcnv.link
October 14, 2025 at 10:06 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
phdhurtbrain.bsky.social
Feels like in the 2000-2010s there was this sea change in academia where young scholars were supposed to brand themselves in this or that way to be competitive on the market, but 3 market collapses later it feels like the pivot simply led to atomized individualistic approaches to illegible fields
October 12, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
womenshistscot.bsky.social
📣 NOW ACCEPTING ESSAYS! The Leah Leneman Prize for research on women’s or gender history is open to students & independent scholars. Submit your 8-10k word essay by 22 Dec 2025 📅

Full details: womenshistoryscotland.org/projects-and...
Front cover of Leah Leneman's 'The Scottish Suffragettes' featuring an image of an Ewardian woman in front of a 'Womens Freedom League' banner, and a second image of a busy suffrage march with banners that read 'Votes for Women'.
October 12, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
sethcotlar.bsky.social
In March of 1945, the US Army issued this "fact sheet" to guide conversations with soldiers on the topic of fascism, paying particular attention to the ongoing threat that domestic fascist movements posed to the US. Their analysis of what a homegrown US fascism would look like is interesting.
CRESTRICTED] ORIENTATION FACT SHEET 64 WAR DEPARTMENT-WASHINGTON 25, D. C. • 24 March 1945 FASCISM! Note For This Week's Discussion: Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze; nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it. Points to stress are: (1) Fascism is more apt to come to power at a time of economic crisis; (2) fascism inevitably leads to war; (3) it can come to any country; (4) we can best combat it by making our democracy work.
August 1, 2024 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Anne Barr
thehorrorchick.bsky.social
This one hurts a lot. RIP Diane Keaton.

I don’t even know what else to say.
Diane Keaton in THE GODFATHER. Diane Keaton in SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE. Diane Keaton in REDS. Diane Keaton in BABY BOOM.
October 11, 2025 at 7:22 PM
rabarr.bsky.social
*Clarissa* changes another life! There's hope for the world. #18thcentury #reading
October 9, 2025 at 4:19 PM