Dr Deborah Mutch

Dr Deborah Mutch joined the English Department at De Montfort in September 2005. Her primary research focuses on the fiction published by members of the British socialist movement between 1880 and 1914.  She has published a number of books and articles on this area of literature including a scholarly edition of John Law (Margaret Harkness) A City Girl (Victorian Secrets, 2015), British Socialist Fiction, 1884-1910 (Pickering & Chatto, 2013) and English Socialist Periodicals, 1880-1900 (Ashgate, 2005).  Deborah has recently contributed chapters to the Routledge Companion to Victorian Periodicals, ed by Alexis Easley, John Moreton and Andrew King (2016) and W. T. Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary, ed. by Roger Luckhurst, Laurel Brake and James Mussell (2016), and is currently working on a chapter on women's columns in the socialist press for The Edinburgh History of Victorian Women and Print Media, ed. by Alexis Easley, Beth Rodgers and Clare Gill (2017).  Longer term plans include a monograph on the use of material and abstract space in socialist fiction.

Deborah has also published on the modern resurgence of Gothic literature and edited a collection of essays on the subject, entitled The Modern Vampire and Human Identity (Palgrave, 2012).

Dr Mutch is a member of both the Centre for Textual Studies and the Centre for Adaptations.

Click here for a full listing of Deborah Mutch's publications and outputs.

Books

ed. John Law (Margaret Harkness), A City Girl, Victorian Secrets (2015)

 British Socialist Fiction, 1884-1910, 5 vols., Pickering and Chatto (2013)

The Modern Vampire and Human Identity, Palgrave (2012)

ed. English Socialist Periodicals, 1880-1900: A Reference Source, Ashgate, Nineteenth Century series (2005)

Articles, Book Chapters and Bibliographic

'Making Space for Women: The Labour Leader, the Clarion and the Woman's Column', The Edinburgh History of Victorian Women and Print Media, 1830-1900, ed. Alexis Easley, Beth Rodgers and Clare Gill, Edinburgh University Press (forthcoming 2017)

‘Social Purpose Periodicals’, in Ashgate Companion to Victorian Periodicals, ed. Alexis Easley, John Moreton and Andrew King, Ashgate, (forthcoming 2016)

‘The Long Recuperation: Late-Nineteenth/Early-Twentieth Century British Socialist Periodical Fiction’, Key Words (12, 2014, 46-59)

The Encyclopedia of British Literature, 1660-1789, ed. Gary Day and Jack Lynch, Wiley-Blackwell (2013).  Contribution: Ann Radcliffe.

 ‘“Are We Christians?”: W. T. Stead, Keir Hardie and the Boer War’, in W. T. Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary, ed. Roger Luckhurst, Laurel Brake, James Mussell, Ed King, British Library Publications (2012)

‘Re-Humanising Marx: Theory and Fiction in the Fin de Siècle British Socialist Periodical’, in Towards a New Literary Humanism ed. Andy Mousley, Palgrave (2011)

‘Coming Out of the Coffin: The Vampire and Transnationalism in the Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse Series’, Critical Survey, (23.2, 2011, 75-90)

‘Re-Righting the Past: Socialist Historical Narrative and the Road to the New Life’, Literature and History (18.1, 2009,  16-34)

Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism, ed by Laurel Brake, British Library, Academia Press and ProQuest (2009).  Contributions: Henry Mayers Hyndman, Robert Blatchford, Henry Hyde Champion, Harry Quelch, Joseph Burgess, C. Allen Clarke, William Morris, Justice, The Labour Elector, Workman’s Times, Clarion, Labour and Socialist Periodicals.

‘Intemperate Narratives: Tory Tipplers, Liberal Abstainers and Nineteenth-Century British Socialist Fiction’, Victorian Literature and Culture, (36.2, 2008, 471-487)

‘“A Working Class Tragedy”: The Fiction of Henry Hyndman’, Nineteenth Century Studies (20, 2007, 99-112)

‘The Merrie England Triptych: Robert Blatchford, Edward Fay and the didactic use of Clarion fiction’, Victorian Periodicals Review, (38.1, 2005, 83-103)

Victorian literature, serialised fiction, the periodical press, fin-de-siècle and contemporary Gothic.

The novel, Victorian literature, working-class literature, historicism, literary theory, Gothic and fin de siecle literature, employability.

Ph.D. 'Serial Socialists: The Discourse of Serialised Socialist Fiction, 1885 – 1895’, Universities of Nottingham and Derby, 2002

MA by Literary Research, 'Chartism is the Offspring of the Imagination: The Politics of Chartist Fiction', University of Lancaster, 1995

BA (Hons) English Literature, University of Lancaster, 1994

Engl 1011 Introduction to the Novel (module leader)

Engl 3019 The Working Class in Literature and Film (module leader)

Engl 3000 English Literature Dissertation

Colby Book Prize Judging Panel, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, 2013 and 2014

British Association for Victorian Studies

Literary London Society

Socialist History Society

Radical Women, 1880-1914, Working Class Movement Library Salford, 17 September 2016. http://www.wcml.org.uk/radical-women-1880-1914/

Public Lectures

‘The Woman Worker and the Male Journalist’, Working Class Movement Library Invisible Histories season, Autumn 2016 (TBA)

‘Sex in the City: Margaret Harkness and Late-Victorian London’, States of Independence book festival, March 2016

‘Clarion Literature’, Public lecture for the Clarion exhibition, Working Class Movement Library, Salford, March 2012. 

‘Reading Across The Page: Socialism and Serialisation’, North-West Long Nineteenth Century Seminar, April 2010.  

Recent Conference Papers

'Wrapt in Advertisements at the Feet of Nelson: Margaret Harkness, Out of Work and Trafalgar Square', From Brontë to Bloomsbury: Realism, Sensation and the New in Women’s Writing from the 1840s to the 1930s, International Centre for Victorian Women Writers, Canterbury Christchurch University, July 2016

‘Margaret Harkness, ‘Connie’: Melodrama and Socialist Fiction’, Women’s History Network, University of Kent, Canterbury, September 2015

‘Sex in the City: The London Novels of Margaret Harkness’, Literary London Conference, Senate House, July 2015

‘Fiction, Feuilleton and the British Socialist Press’, Places, Spaces and the Victorian Periodical Press: Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Delaware, September 2014

‘The Working Class and Public Space in British Socialist Fiction, 1884-1914’, Between Places and Spaces: Landscapes of Liminality, Trinity College, Dublin, June 2014

‘Breaking with Tradition: Socialist Fiction, Socialist Periodicals and Political Change’, Tradition and the New: Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Salford University, July 2013

‘“Are We Christians?”: W. T. Stead, Keir Hardie and the Boer War’, W. T. Stead Centenary Conference, British Library, April 2012.

‘The Walking Tour: The Clarion Flaneur, Writers and Readers’, DMU History Seminar, April 2011. 

‘From Introductory to Valedictory: Serial Fiction and the Clarion’, British Association for Victorian Studies, University of Glasgow, September 2010.

‘‘No one suddenly announced that he was a gargoyle and wanted a place at the American table’: Transnationalism and Twenty-First Century American Gothic’, Angels and Demons Conference, Canterbury Christ Church University, June 2010.

‘From Local to Global: fin de siècle Socialist Periodical Networks’, Symposium, Centre for Textual Studies, De Montfort University, June 2009. 

'"The Women's Labour Problem" (Justice, 6 May 1893, 1): The role of the maternal in fin de siècle British Socialist Fiction, The Other Nineteenth Century, Chester University, June 2009.

‘Feeling Marx: Fin de Siècle British Socialism, Ideology and Periodical Fiction’, BAVS, University of Leicester September 2008.

‘Re-Humanising Marx: Theory, Praxis and the Literature of Fin de Siècle British Socialists’, Is There a Human in this Text Conference, De Montfort University, July 2008.

‘‘Nunquam’, ‘John Smith’ and the Character of Clarion Socialism’, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Roehampton University, July 2008.

Conference Organisation

James Keir Hardie 15 August 1856-26 September 1915, Working Class Movement Library, Salford, with the Society for the Study of Labour History and the Keir Hardie Society, 26^th September 2015.

‘“Making It New”: Victorian and Modernist Literature and Periodicals, 1875-1935’, internationals one-day conference with Louise Kane, De Montfort University, 28 February 2015

‘The Monster Inside Us, The Monsters Around Us: Monstrosity and Humanity’, international three-day conference, De Montfort University, November 2011. Keynote speakers: Professor David Punter (Bristol), Dr Andy Mousley (DMU).

‘Vegetarians, VILFs and Fangbangers: Modern Vampire Romance in Print and On Screen’, international one-day conference, De Montfort University, November 2010.  Keynote speaker: Dr Nickianne Moody (LJMU).

‘Victorian Networks and the Periodical Press’, Minneapolis, USA, September 2009, Conference committee member for Research Society for Victorian Periodicals international conference.

Maija Kuharenok, PhD.: Mathilde Blind’s The Ascent of Man: Text, Context, Themes

Post-Graduate Completions:

Elizabeth Penner, MPhil/PhD.: Masculinity and The Boy’s Own Magazine (2016)

Sue Petty, MPhil.: 20th Century Female Working-Class Autobiography (2015)

British Academy Small Grant, October 2015: £5327.26, awarded March 2016

Amiel and Melburn Trust Major Funding Award: £2580, for creation of pilot website of socialist periodicals.  Awarded June 2011

British Academy Overseas Conference Grant: £400, travel to Time and the Victorian Press: Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Conference, September 2007. Awarded June 2007

British Academy Small Research Grant SG-43822: £750.  Awarded June 2006.

Archive of Working-Class Writing: steering-group member with Prof. Timothy Ashplant (Liverpool John Moores University), Prof. Simon Dentith (Reading), Dr. Michael Sanders (Manchester) and Dr. Helen Rogers (Liverpool John Moores University).

‘Clarion Literature’, Public lecture for the Clarion exhibition, Working Class Movement Library, Salford, March 2012.