We’re absolutely delighted to welcome Professor Amy L. Montz of the University of Southern Indiana to give our November lecture. She is the Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at the University of Manchester.
The crises of authenticity sparked by the expanding British Empire and increasing contact with France often were articulated through fictional and non-fictional discussions of fashion. As Englishwomen were figured as symbols of nation, attention to their presentations of self, and therefore of Englishness, became anxious attention to their fashion choices. The minute details of dress – petticoats, turbans, crinolines, and fabrics – became a particular point of discussion for Sarah Stickney Ellis, Eliza Lynn Linton, and Elizabeth Gaskell, and these pieces of ensemble were read for national as well as personal origin and allegiance.
In this talk, Amy will argue that Gaskell’s Cranford (1853) offers a microcosmic view of the larger English concern over the Empire’s and France’s influence on the people of England through Englishwomen’s fashionable choices. Through its discussions of shawls, crinolines, and red umbrellas, Gaskell’s novel demonstrates that everyday items of domesticity speak not only of the concerns of women, but also of the concerns of nation.
Amy’s book, Dressing for England: Fashion and Nationalism in Victorian Novels will be published by SUNY Press in December 2025.
Please note this is a change to our previously published schedule. Dr Diane Duffy’s lecture, ‘The Rural Idyll and the Changing World: Challenging Conventionality in the Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell and Thomas Hardy’ will be presented at our Annual General Meeting in April 2026.
Everyone is most welcome to come along, members and non-members alike. Doors open at 1pm (feel free to bring a packed lunch) and the talk will begin at 1.30pm.
Tickets are £5 for members, £6 for non-members. Simply pay on the door or book online with the button below (no booking fee).
