Very excited to be co-organizing this event with Adam Smith @elementaladam.bsky.social & Sarah Griffin @uoylibrary.bsky.social

CECS is at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies in Philadelphia this week. CECS friends & alumni, please say hello to CECS director Prof Chloe Wigston Smith @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social to catch up, and learn about our upcoming events and future plans.

Photograph of Heslington Hall, a brick Jacobean manor house, with small hedges in the foreground and blue sky above.

Blue sky views this morning at work @cecs-york.bsky.social. #HeslingtonHall #UniversityofYork

I’m looking forward to talking about our MA in Eighteenth Century Studies later today. It was first established as a course in 1994 (convened by John Barrell and Ludmilla Jordanova), so it’s almost as old as the long 18th century itself. #18thcentury

🎥 We're hosting a special screening of a new documentary on the 18th century poet Phillis Wheatley Peters.
📍 9 March at 5pm in V/N/045, Vanbrugh College
🎟️ This is a free event, but booking is essential at the link on our events page: www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c...

It’s happening. Spring, almost.

I’m looking forward to talking about our fantastic MA in Eighteenth Century Studies as part of York’s Master Taster Day on 18 March.

📢 Our next seminar is scheduled for Tuesday 24 February with Désha Osborne presenting a paper on “Of a ‘lively dark eye’ or ‘chilly and tender’: Jane Austen, the Morality of Empire, and the Hidden Scottish Presence"
🗓️ Tuesday 24 February, 5pm
📍 HG/21, Heslington Hall
🔗 www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c...

📢 Our next seminar is scheduled for Tuesday 10 February with Susan Carlile presenting a paper on “Thinking Globally in The Lady's Magazine, or Polite Companion, 1759-1767"
🗓️ Tuesday 10 February, 5pm
📍 HG/09, Heslington Hall & online
🔗 Register www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c...

All things Turner in 2025 this Friday 23 January. Details below.

👀 a 30% discount on my book & including postage in the UK 📚

Such an honour to present this keynote to an audience of brilliant #18thcentury scholars.

Image of our bookshelf filled with 18th Century Studies titles at the BSECS 2026 Conference

@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 🗃️

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.

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

After many months of work & planning, I’m so pleased that the CECS art wall is now a reality.

What a dream to co-author this article with the one & only @jenniebatchelor.bsky.social

Oh, I do know the answer to this one…

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

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:

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...

US & Canadian friends, Yale University Press is running 30% sitewide sale through December 5th using the discount code GIFT30: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

TODAY! We’re looking forward to this in-person CECS seminar with the always wonderful Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth @carolinemccaff.bsky.social

TODAY! We’re very excited at CECS to hear from Dr Rachael King, our British Academy International Visiting Fellow this autumn.

Maybe? I don’t remember not liking it before teaching it but have loved teaching it…since (checks dates 😱😬) 2007…though it has been a few years now…

One of my favourites to teach! Not sure it gets enough love.

Oh very glad to hear that you don’t regret your purchase!

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...

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...

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 👇🏻

Anna Laetita Barbauld, eighteenth-century polymath, two-hundred years on | My Site

I'm talking about Anna Laetitia Barbauld again tomorrow! 🗣️🗣️🗣️York Georgian Society lecture: more details here: www.georgianyork.org.uk/events-1/ann...

Very much looking forward to this CECS research seminar 📜

Looking forward to delivering the Annual Dr Williams's Lecture tomorrow at Senate House, London: Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Dissenting Hymns 🗣️🗣️🗣️

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.