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Cathy Waters

@catherinefaver.bsky.social
718 followers 262 following 139 posts

Professor Emerita of Victorian Literature and Print Culture, Dickensian and long-distance walker.

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Reposted by Cathy Waters
Dr Vic Clarke @vjctorianist.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
After a string of desk rejections and unsuccessful interviews, I am still looking for work in West Yorkshire/remotely. I have experience in HE teaching and administration, editing and copyediting, research and writing, and customer service! If you know of any roles going please send them my way 🙏
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
👏🎉
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/science/2026... ‘the idea of the Christmas Carol is a wonderful one that highlights this notion that times maybe aren’t all separate. …maybe we can join … someone from the past, someone from the future.’ Jim Al-Khalili on forthcoming RI Xmas lecture @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social
theguardian.com
Tech billionaires trying to live for ever? That’s a waste of time, says physicist
Exclusive: Prof Jim Al-Khalili says he will offer solution to ‘arrow of time’ problem in Royal Institution lectures
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Dickens as relevant as ever @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social
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Research Society for Victorian Periodicals @rs4vp.org · 01/09/2026
The applications portal for #RSVP2027 is now officially open! We invite all of your latest ideas on the intersections of 'Structure' and #19thC periodicals/print culture. Final proposals due 1 November. Get inspired and more information on our website: rs4vp.org/rsvp-confere...
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Elise Garritzen @egarritzen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
How Victorian celebrities and publishers used periodicals to boost fans' loyalty, make profit, and advance political agendas: cliosfootnotes.wordpress.com/2026/08/31/n...
cliosfootnotes.wordpress.com
Nurturing a Fanbase in Fin de Siècle Britain: The Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture
By the mid-nineteenth century, manufacturers, publishers, commercial photographers, and many others had come to realize that celebrities could be worth big bucks. Yet, successful celebrity commodif…
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Helena Goodwyn @helenagoodwyn.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
A historical perspective on our current reading crisis?: my new article for @theconversation.com explores why a 120-year-old warning about declining reading habits sounds remarkably familiar today, from skimming newspapers to scrolling social media. Read it here: theconversation.com/why-an-120-y...
theconversation.com
Why an 120-year-old warning about reading feels uncomfortably familiar
Journalists have been decrying the decline in reading for over 100 years and yet it persists.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Isobel Armstrong on saving English. Brilliant as ever. tribunemag.co.uk/2026/08/savi...
tribunemag.co.uk
Saving English
The government’s drive for ‘vocational’ education is accelerating the death of the humanities, at a time when the study of literature is more vital than ever.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Just arrived in the post and full of good reading: the Summer issue of The Dickensian!
Contents page of The Dickensian
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Sarah Emily Duff @sarahemilyduff.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
‘writing crystallizes previously half-formulated or unformulated thoughts, gives them form, and extends chains of thoughts in new directions’ As everyone has already said, this 2010 essay by Lynn Hunt is utterly wonderful:
historians.org
How Writing Leads to Thinking (and Not the Other Way Around) – AHA
Writing is stressful. Sitting in my computer chair my neck and shoulder muscles almost immediately tense up as I dig around in my brain for the best phrase or even any coherent string of words.
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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 14/08/2026
10/10 take from Morten Morland in The Times
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Australia routinely declares a Total Fire Ban, with stiff penalties for violation, during heat waves. Here in the UK we ask stores not to sell portable BBQs 🙄
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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Apparently £5million can’t buy you enough security to protect you from an imaginary threat.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int... This is a superb defence of the essay as a form of thinking - ‘To write is not just to transcribe the mind’s ideas; it’s a form of transformation’ - citing EM Forster: ‘How do I know what I think until I see what I say?’ Precisely.
theguardian.com
‘I hate what AI is doing to the minds and happiness of the young’: Katherine Rundell on the view from the classroom
Education is at a crossroads, argues the author and academic. Should we embrace new technology in the name of efficiency, or is it time to fight back?
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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
A lithographer at work, from the title page of Charles Hullmandell's The Art of Drawing on Stone: Giving a Full Explanation of the Various Styles, of the Different Methods to be Employed to Ensure Success, and of the Modes of Correcting, as Well as of the Several Causes of Failure (1824).
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Chris Grey @chrisgrey.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Not for the faint-hearted, but excellent as ever
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Troy J. Bassett @3volumenovel.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
All fiction titles from the English Catalogue, Volume 4 have now been added! That means 1862–1889 are complete. Next up: the 1890s... • 27,471 title entries • 6,770 author entries (most with bios) Big thank you to my students from last semester who assisted me to this milestone.
A graph of the number of titles published per year, 1837 to 1901, showing an increasingly steep increase up to the 1890s
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Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · 03/08/2026
“Trump presumably assumed the BBC, like other entities he has brought suits against, would simply fold. But the BBC said no,” writes The Empty City
prospectmagazine.co.uk
How the BBC turned the litigation table on Trump
The president now faces a dilemma about revealing his business records
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Sonia Silva ❤️ @vallygirl.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
If I were Nigel Farage, I’d dip into that £5 million crypto gift just to fund a video that can compete with this! 🤣 HILARIOUS ⬇️
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Martin Hewitt @vicmanch.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
British Library's EThOS platform for its online database of 650,000 doctoral theses back online. Hooray!
bl.uk
EThOS records restored
We are pleased to share that EThOS (E-Theses Online Service) is now available again following restoration work after the cyber-attack.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Welcomed by the Town Crier of Bluetown on the Isle of Sheppey, members of @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social and the Pickwick Club today enjoyed a gripping performance of Great Expectations by Gerald Dickens, great great grandson of the Inimitable, at The Criterion.
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Pete Orford @peteorford.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Reupping this as we hit the last two weeks before the cfp deadline. Dickens Day is an inclusive conference aimed at academic and enthusiast alike: we welcome proposals from postgraduates, professors and independent researchers on “Dickens and family”. Further details at www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
'Only a human being can effectively be accountable for the accuracy, integrity and originality of research. Thus, only human beings should write papers. Some journals...make this accountability requirement abundantly clear.' But quite a lot do not.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Another lovely celebration of the life of Michael Slater last night, organised by @ies-sas.bsky.social and the Charles #Dickens Museum.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
I saw these beauties at Maggs Bros in Bedford Square this evening and thought of you @andrewkingc19.bsky.social
Set of novels by Ouida
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/... This year’s Long Distance Walkers Association annual 100 mile challenge is marking the centenary of the publication of Winnie the Pooh!
sussexexpress.co.uk
Hundreds of walkers prepare for trek through Ashdown Forest area, including Crowborough, Nutley and Horsted Keynes, over Bank Holiday weekend
Around 500 people are preparing to hike 100 miles on a route that will take them through the Ashdown Forest area during the next Bank Holiday weekend.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
As ever, excellent analysis of where we are now.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
A brilliant performance of the Bardell v Pickwick trial at this afternoon’s Celebration of the Life of Michael Slater, from Miriam Margolyes, Malcolm Andrews and two members of the #Dickens family, Gerald and Mark Dickens. A wonderful tribute to a great and much-missed Dickensian.
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Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
A reminder that abstracts for the @dickenssociety.bsky.social Dickens on Screen online event are due in 7 days! 👇✍️🎦
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Nineteenth-century cos-play on display in the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum. Hilarious! Also some lovely Hokusai prints.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
That's a model for a 'patriotic curriculum'. It's Shakespeare and Austen and Zephaniah; it's slavery, abolition and post-emancipation apprenticeship; it's Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Ugandan Asians; it's pride and anger and an insistent demand for scrutiny. It's not binary: it's historical. 6/6
Sign on a building: 'We are here because you were there'. There is a brick building in the background and a security camera below the sign.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
This is good. Read it, especially but not only if you are a government minister. It comes from a reflective place of praxis. Unlike much of what has been said on this topic, this is not slop.
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Pete Orford @peteorford.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
The CFP for Dickens Day 2026 is live! We warmly invite proposals linked to this year’s theme of “Dickens and family” (both in his life and work). The deadline is 15 June, and the day itsef will be on Saturday 10 October at Senate House, London. All are welcome! www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
sas.ac.uk
Dickens Day 2026 - ‘Dickens and Family’
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
'AI boosters...think that when people write they are directly transferring...ideas that exist pristinely in their heads directly into language. They see the effort of writing as something that gets in the way of this pure process. They see writing as a transparent process of transference'. 1/2
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Beth Gaskell @bethgaskell.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Today's #MastheadMonday is The Standard of Freedom (1848-51). It was published by John Cassell as a family newspaper aimed at those with a reformist mindset, advocating 'Political, Commercial & Religious Freedom'. Digitised by the BL & free-to-view: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/stand...
Masthead for The Standard of Freedom, which is presented as a ribbon curled around its moto. Its moto is: Political, Commercial and Religious Freedom, which appears on a banner in the middle of the title.
This is volume one, issue one, for Saturday, July 1st, 1848 and was priced at four pence halfpenny.
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
I’m in Dorset for an LDWA challenge event tomorrow. Very disappointed to find that the Macready-Dickens screen is not currently on display in The Sherborne! But happy to spot this mural nearby. For info on the screen research.kent.ac.uk/macready/ @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social
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Adam Grener @adamgrener.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
What a wonderful day at the V&A / National Art Library talking about Dickens's Compostional Process and ways of engaging wide audiences with his material archive. @dickensnotes.bsky.social is on Bluesky now too 😀
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Exhibit one: why so little attention to the travails of our national library? www.cityam.com/the-british-...
cityam.com
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
A slide of imperative verbs (addressed to himself? Or to the narrative?) gleaned from Dickens’s memoranda and notes as part of www.dickensnotes.com project and a session with the manuscripts themselves in the V&A National Art Library. Thanks to Anna Gibson and Adam Grener for a great workshop!
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Let the Dickens House Party begin! At the Royal Hotel Ventnor with ‘The Dickens Boys’, Ian and Gerald, as inimitable hosts @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social
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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Canadian Mountie: "Mr. Ness, I do not approve of your methods!" Elliott Ness: "Yeah? Well, you're not from Chicago."
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Billy Bragg @billybragg.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Just going to leave this here
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Just opened at the Charles Dickens Museum in London 🎉👏
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Sathnam Sanghera @sathnam.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Obviously zero reflection in any of this on how operating the largest empire in human history may have turned us into a multicultural nation. We are here because you were there. #Empireland www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
PM asks Sir Jim Ratcliffe to apologise for saying UK 'colonised by immigrants'
Sir Keir Starmer says comments by the businessman and Manchester United co-owner are
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Agreed. Superb analysis.
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Jim Mussell @jimmussell.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Obit for Michael Slater in the @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
theguardian.com
Michael Slater obituary
Scholar of Charles Dickens who wrote a definitive biography and shone a light on the writer’s more neglected works
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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Looking forward to seeing this in the new year! Charles Dickens exhibition to shine light on powerful women in author’s life www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
theguardian.com
Charles Dickens exhibition to shine light on powerful women in author’s life
Novels only ‘reinforced Victorian stereotypes’ of meek women to give readers what they wanted, says curator
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Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
"Christmas Morning". Charles Green illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Pears' Christmas Annual 1892 (Day 7 of 7).
An old man in nightdress leans out of an upstairs window.
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Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Green's image provides an intriguing reinterpretation of John Leech's original illustration, "The Last of the Spirits". Green is slightly more faithful to Dickens's text in representing Scrooge clutching at the Spirit's robe, but the miser's name is not evident on the gravestone as in Leech.
A figure draped and hooded in a black robe points at a grave; an old man clutches his face in distress.
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Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
"Scrooge and the Third Spirit". Charles Green illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Pears' Christmas Annual 1892 (Day 6 of 7).
A figure draped and hooded in a black robe points at a grave; a startled old man wearing a night-cap ('tis his grave, after all), clutches at the figure's dark robe.
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