Sign in

Dr Janette Leaf

@janetteleaf.bsky.social
604 followers 306 following 50 posts

Honorary Research Fellow: Birkbeck, Uni of London. 2023-2026. Weird cats, Cultural Entomology; Victorianism; Hypnotic Gothic; Egyptomania; Redheads; Shop Girls; Pre Raphaelite Art; Ghost Ships; Neo-Victorianism. Co-editor BL Insect Weird anthology.

PostsRepliesMedia
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Thanks so much for your posts! I'm actually an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, not an Independent Scholar! I asked for the error at draft programme stage to be corrected, but, unfortunately it wasn't. My bio was correct in the Chair's intro and on my opening slide, but you must have missed it.
110
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Thoroughly enjoyed presenting my paper on Sea Shanties at #BAVS2026. Loved the audience engagement so much I almost burst into song! @19birkbeck.bsky.social @bavs-uk.bsky.social. Great to have reconnected with fellow Victorianists & Birkbeckians #victorian #nineteenth-century #liverpool #shanties
040
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Dr Jen Baker @jendeavour.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Final chapter! @janetteleaf.bsky.social shows how the sub-genre of spectral insects in Golden Age ghost stories inspire fear of what was once fleshly and is now transformed into the insubstantial and the exoskeletal. Bugs that go “Boo!” make the skin crawl like nothing else can. #NewDirections👻 🐜🕷🪳🐛
0105
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
110
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Huge excitement! I've written a chapter on 'Bugs that go "Boo!", and my contributing author's copy of New Directions in the Ghost story arrived today. Thanks to fabulous editors & fellow writers @jendeavour.bsky.social @joanpassey.bsky.social @henrybartholomew.bsky.social (@19birkbeck.bsky.social)
061
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Six go to the Music Hall! Birkbeck postdoc pals with partners enjoying 'Iolanthe' at Wilton's. @19birkbeck.bsky.social @drvickymills.bsky.social @luisacale.bsky.social @jeremynewton64.bsky.social @vpfa.bsky.social @bavs-uk.bsky.social #Birkbeckontour
050
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Our second 'Dracula' adaption this season - this time with fantastic beat-boxing, a capella pop songs. and a really funny script by Dan Paterson. Park theatre is a great little venue too. #Gothic #Dracula #nineteenthcentury #FrontRowFun
020
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
If you like #Victorian popular fiction, #Egyptomania or #19thCentury Art, I hope you'll like my article! I loved my editors! @vpfa.bsky.social @bavs-uk.bsky.social @19birkbeck.bsky.social @ncsascholars.bsky.social @issegyptomania.bsky.social @mariecorelli.bsky.social @edinburghup.bsky.social
1155
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Dr Emily Vincent @dremilyvincent.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Sign up for this week and next week’s online #Halloween #Gothic events with @gothicauob.bsky.social and @cncsi.bsky.social 🎃⬇️
073
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
Wow! Loads of congratulations on your new little one! I hope Brodie's enjoying being a big bro! I'm building up to proper gigs by doing solos at incredibly supportive acoustic sessions or open mics run by pals. (Either I'm a sucker for punishment or my listeners are 🤣)
000
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
All fine! Latest area of research is the Hypnotic Gothic😵‍💫😴I've got a Victoriographies article due out very soon on my core stuff: Satanic Scarabs & Orientalist Art in fin-de-siecle Gothic. 🪲Apart from that, I'm branching out into singing/songwriting 🤠💀. Hope you, your partner & little'un are well!
100
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Hey! This is incredibly late, but massive congratulations on the doctorate! I happened to see that you were now Dr Craig Thomson! Fabulous! 🐺
media.tenor.com
a silhouette of a person standing in front of a full moon with capcom written on the bottom right
ALT: a silhouette of a person standing in front of a full moon with capcom written on the bottom right
100
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Thank you very much! And, I hope you know I think you're incredible too! 🤩
010
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
I'm grateful to @bavs-uk.bsky.social @vpfa.bsky.social @issegyptomania.bsky.social bsls.ac.uk @incsa.bsky.social @thebsls.bsky.social & so many individuals within the #Victorian #Gothic #Egyptomania #LitSci #PreRaphaeilite communities for friendship & support during my Research Fellowships.
bsls.ac.uk
The British Society for Literature and Science
092
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Delighted to take up my 3rd Birkbeck Honorary Research Fellowship today. Looking back at some of the 30 conference papers I've presented since being awarded my doctorate, I'm excited for 2025-2026. @19birkbeck.bsky.social @theprofrog.bsky.social @drvickymills.bsky.social @luisacale.bsky.social
150
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
Bathed in blood-red light at #Dracula @lyrichammersmith.bsky.social soaking up the staging, centring of the relationship between Mina and Lucy, & Mina's key editorial role. Nice nod to those in the know with the appearance of the yellow-backed 1897 edition! Loved it! #Gothic @indiekid.bsky.social
040
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Happy Birthday to Beatrix Potter: born 28 July 1866! An incredible woman: a writer, illustrator, nature lover and natural scientist, botanist, mycologist, entomologist, zoologist, archaeologist . . .
0177
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
When you are determining where to submit your scholarly essay for potential publication & you opt not to send it to a specific journal bc their publisher is, say, licensing “content” to train AI — please tell the journal editor. This info is crucial for editors but shadowy / difficult to document.
07731
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
It was really great to see you, Jen! I also loved the shoutout to @britishlibrary.bsky.social Tales of the Weird editors in your talk, especially as @dremilyvincent.bsky.social, @pamplemoussepam.bsky.social & I were all sat near each other. Pam spotted our books in ‪@blackwelloxford.bsky.social‬! x
130
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
I absolutely loved our panel too! It was wonderful to present alongside you and to chat! Your research is amazing and your 'thanks for listening' slide one of the very best. Hope to see you soon at another event! 🪲💀
010
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
Thanks very much! 🪲
010
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
#BAVS2025 you were a blast! 5 x Birkbeck papers from @drvickymills.bsky.social @nonfictioness.bsky.social @helenaesser.bsky.social Julia Kuehn and me! Great to hang with @jeremynewton64.bsky.social too! Such fun and sociability with so many great #Victorian scholars! @19birkbeck.bsky.social
1154
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Open Culture @openculture.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use
openculture.com
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use
Update: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic works. Even better, the museum has placed the vast majority of these images into the public domain, mea...
6535661693
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Dr Andrew McInnes @drbeard79.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
CFP for Sex in the #19thC (deets in alt) Abstracts (300 words), biographies (100 words), and should be submitted on Monday 22d September 2025 to rrr @ soton.ac.uk. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for a travel bursary, and include your full name, discipline & institution.
CFP with caricature of a throuple on a sofa: a man in the middle between two women with breasts more or less exposed 

Sex in the Long Nineteenth Century
15th January 2026 
University of Stirling, Scotland
Keynote speaker: Dr. Michael Shaw
In The History of Sexuality (1976), Foucault outlines the 'discursive explosion' that occurred around
sex during the long nineteenth century. Sexuality became a distinct personal identity for the first time, as shown in literature and art, and sexual discourses often reflected the period's political and
social anxieties around gender and power. Modern queer theorists first situated their work within
nineteenth-century studies (Eve Kofosky Sedgewick, Between Men, 1985), and recent work in the
field historicises marginalised groups (Jen Manion, Female Husbands: A Trans History, 2020). Sex
encourages us to consider the broader cultural and societal dynamics of the long nineteenth century, and the lasting influence of these structures today.
We invite papers of 15 minutes on the topic of sex in the long nineteenth century (1789-1914) in all its forms and in a global context for our in-person conference. We encourage broad interpretations of the topic and invite submissions that explore its fluid and multifaceted nature. The journal
encourages multi- and interdisciplinary papers from across the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities and invites contributions from those at any career stage, including PGRs and ECRs.
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Sexuality and queer studies • Women's writing
• Gender, feminism, and masculinities • Sexual health, contraception, and the medical
• Trans studies humanities
• Pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare • Sex work
• Sex scandals in court and politics • Print culture; pornography and Victorian erotica
• Gothic literature • Postcolonial and ecocritical perspectives on
• Decadence; hedonism gender and sex
32318
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Rami Ismail (رامي) @ramiismail.com · 15/07/2025
Bye forever, WeTransfer.
WeTransfer TOS says they can use all your uploaded content for genAI
20969043699
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
It will be so great meeting in person! Really looking forward to your Gothic panel on Friday too! x
010
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
This is really good news, not least because it's some sort of recognition of the huge amount you do! It definitely deserves celebration and congratulation! I'm really happy for you!
120
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books.
Two figures approach the Baggage Reclaim area of an airport. 

One says “We wouldn't need to put things in the hold if you brought fewer books on holiday.”

Arriving on the carousel, amongst the bags and suitcases is a very large, well-stocked bookcase.
14944245
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
This is such fun! And many congratulations on your doctorate!
110
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
Architect Alfred Waterhouse born #OTD 1830 to a Liverpool Quaker family. Buildings include Manchester Town Hall, London’s Natural History Museum, Liverpool University's Victoria building. His love of red brick and terracotta led to him being nicknamed 'Slaughterhouse Waterhouse'.
0375
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Just to give a flavour of Birkbeck C19th doings at #VPFAExtremes ! @19birkbeck.bsky.social @drvickymills.bsky.social @luisacale.bsky.social @theprofrog.bsky.social @andrewkingc19.bsky.social @helenaesser.bsky.social
020
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
Also, if you're working on C19 sources, see @patrickleary.bsky.social's invaluable list of open-access 19th-c periodicals here:
victorianresearch.org
VRW: Open Access Periodicals
075
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
‪Still buzzing after an amazing #VPFAextremes conference! What a treat to hear so many talented speakers and to present on Hypnotic Gothic alongside Birkbeck pals! @vpfa.bsky.social #Gothic #victorian
1101
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
One of the things I enjoyed pre submission was generating word clouds for each of my chapters. Bizarrely, it helped with re-structuring. I was also obsessive about keeping track of my wordcount for the intro, each chapter & conclusion to make sure it didn't become unbalanced! You're nearly there!
110
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
John J Johnston @johnjjohnston.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Delighted to welcome my splendid colleagues at @issegyptomania.bsky.social to Bluesky 🦋. Please consider giving them a follow on this platform, or even in becoming a member, they do incredible work on the reception of ancient Egypt and host numerous online lectures, seminars, and conferences!
0276
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
De Morgan Foundation @demorganfoundation.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
New exhibition launching at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London, soon! One of the most remarkable artists of her generation, Evelyn De Morgan, is returning to Guildhall Art Gallery this April in an exhibition that premieres two newly restored artworks. Find out more: bit.ly/3QftfhI
04515
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Pre-Raphaelite Society @preraphaelitesoc.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Go follow our friends at the De Morgan Foundation, who have just joined Blue Sky. They have the most amazing collection of Evelyn De Morgan art and William De Morgan ceramics.
0245
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Roses are red Violets are purple Brain's flailing about Like an upside-down turtle! #AcademicValentine #AmNotWriing
010
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Oooooh! Not yet, but sorely tempted!
000
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
The real-life models for Grant Wood’s American Gothic – Nan Wood Graham (Wood's sister) and Dr Byron McKeeby (Wood's dentist) – sitting in front of the painting at an exhibition at the Cedar Rapids Public Library (Wood's hometown) in 1942
B&w photo of two people sitting in front of Grant Wood’s painting “American Gothic”
614535
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
May your insects bring more singing and less stinging in the coming year!
072
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
Seasons Greetings! Hope you're enjoying it as much as Starevich's 1913 insects gathered around the Christmas tree!
050
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Christina Rossetti was born #otd in 1830. Her poem 'In the Bleak Midwinter' was originally published by Scribners in January 1872 as 'A Christmas Carol'. Gustav Holst set it to music in 1906. It was my father's favourite! @wikivictorian.bsky.social @19birkbeck.bsky.social @c19qmul.bsky.social
072
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
#Macbeth west end. Tennant, as always, was great at Shakespearean unhinged. All sound through headphones. No on-stage witches. Atmospheric music. Minimalist monochrome staging. Glass screen divided acting space. Lady Macbeth's white dress invited blood, but remained spotless! Prefer Terry's beetles!
060
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
As a cultural entomologist (among my other C19th preoccupations) I am really happy to see the Rev J. G. Wood up there! I'm citing his Insects at Home (1872) and his Insects Abroad (1874) on a pretty regular basis!
020
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
I love the response of @dreframss.bsky.social to the question asked by @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social about which novel demands a Muppet re-make! I couldn't agree more that The Beetle would be an instant hit. I'm suggesting Miss Piggy for Marjorie Lindon, Kermit for Robert Holt & Animal for Atherton!
061
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Robert Holt played by Kermit, and Atherton by Animal! I'd love Miss Piggy as Marjorie with all that blond hair which the Beetle envies so much. Statler and Waldorf would both play Marjorie Lindon's father. This has been my favourite thread for ages!
120
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
The best way to enjoy a #Victorian Christmas is with an intelligent #Dickens #ConanDoyle mash-up: A Sherlock Carol! Holmes is haunted by ghosts until he solves a case. Great fun. Lots of in-jokes for Victorianists! @drchrislouttit.bsky.social @victorianlondon.bsky.social @dickenssociety.bsky.social
051
Dr Janette Leaf @janetteleaf.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
On 03 December 1926, #AgathaChristie disappeared into the night. Her abandoned car was discovered containing her driving licence, fur coat and dressing case, but no clue to her whereabouts. Conan Doyle enlisted a clairvoyant to find her. 11 days later, she was found! (Image: Daily Mirror 07.12.26)
192
Reposted by Dr Janette Leaf
Lesley A Hall @erinacean.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Optimist: the cup is half full Pessimist: the cup is half empty Archivist: either way, it is not permitted in the Reading Room
10629129