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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Season of mists and mellow proofingness. #proofs #typos

a title page of proofs for a book entitled KILLJOY COMEDY.

Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It's happening! 'Killjoy Comedy: Willful Women and 1750s Fiction' is coming out with @uvapress.bsky.social in February 2027. @sinsleyh.bsky.social says it is 'a ROMP'. I am *floored* @bsecs.bsky.social @asecsoffice.bsky.social #18thcentury #c18th www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10256/

A dour looking elite woman is sitting side-saddle on a horse, followed by a ridiculous supercilious little dog. The title of the book, in hot pink, is KILLJOY COMEDY.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

This headline sounds like it's from The Onion.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Always nerve-wracking to read a review, but am very very grateful to Prof. Elizabeth Kraft for her kind, thorough and positive reading of 'Revisiting Richardson' in the recent issue of The Scriblerian. muse.jhu.edu/pub/2/articl... @bsecs.bsky.social @asecsoffice.bsky.social #18thcentury

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

FINALLY on holiday and read Lady C by @guywjc.bsky.social. A deliciously humorous romp through the reception & cultural afterlives of Lady Chatterley, Lady C wears its erudition lightly. Made me remember how much I loved DH Lawrence as a teen. Time for a revival, perhaps? @yalepress.bsky.social

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

CFP Marianne Moore 2027, an international conference @cam-english-fac.bsky.social. Deadline for proposals 1 Sept 2026. #modernism #poetry

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

It was an absolute joy to celebrate the work of Judith Hawley @royalholloway.bsky.social yesterday. A career built on scholarly friendships, love of the good things in life & an incredible knowledge of #18thcentury history, literature & culture. @elementaladam.bsky.social, @mjrsangster.bsky.social

A row of casually-dressed academics in a Victorian picture gallery, clustered around a glamorous academic woman in a black and orange geometric dress.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

We're starting early with the marking tears. Student responses to an unflinchingly tender poem ('Feel Me') by May Swenson have been *incredible*. In this age of AI, no machine could have responded as these humans have: feelingly, brilliantly.

Portrait of May Swenson, a white woman with brown short cropped hair looks directly at the viewer. Her stare is uncompromising.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Bit bedraggled, what with the climate change heatwave, and 4 hours of sleep after #CGM alarms (the worst disco in the world), but when a copyeditor sends you a nice message, the world seems much better. #AcademicSky

An official message from a copyeditor at a university press, saying they had fun reading an academic book (truly a rarity!).

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Rocket and me doing our patriotic duty. I voted Green, he voted Reform, licked crumbs off the floor and then did a massive wee outside. Typical. #DogsAtPollingStations

small grey and honey coloured mutt beside a sign saying polling station.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Happy international women's day to all the strong wimmin, especially my Mum, Fiona Barr, who finished the #CambridgeHalf marathon today with an excellent time. Hard-core Mammy! #IWD2026

half marathon tracker time for a 73 year old woman, reads 2 hour 34 min and 53 seconds.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

indulging in some self-care tonight. #type1

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Erudite, eloquent, and moving lecture on Shakespeare & the textile imagination by the magnificent @starcrossed2018.bsky.social this evening. The hall was packed with admirers. Good to be reminded how enthralling the best scholarship can be. #Cambridge

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

#Google blurbs RF Brissenden's 'Virtue in Distress'. 'Coco Crocodile is rehearsing her song & Billie the Pig has a dance to perfect & all in time for the evening show! But the Fox Clowns are in a muddle & Magician has made his assistant vanish, COMPLETELY!" Is that #Clarissa or Sade? #18thcentury

Image of a google search for RF Brissenden's scholarly book with a bizarre goodreads review as a result.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

New issue of The Shandean is out: @livunipress.bsky.social inc. an essay on 43 unpublished letters of Sarah Scott & Lady Barbara Montagu and my review @stephaniedegooyer.bsky.social's compelling Before Borders. #18thcentury @bsecs.bsky.social www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/shandean...

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Editors of the collected #poems of Seamus Heaney, Rosie Laven & Bernard O'Donoghue, in conversation with Josie O'Donoghue this evening @irishstudiescam.bsky.social. Moved to (discreet) tears by BOD's gentle reading of Heaney's 'At the WellHead'. #irishstudies

A woman listening carefully with her head to one side while an older man, her father, speaks. on the screen behind them a further woman, the other editor, also listens intently.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

*Clarissa* changes another life! There's hope for the world. #18thcentury #reading

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

A particularly well-placed #dragon today in North front 3. @theul.bsky.social

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

August is a great month for library #dragons.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Today's @jesuscollegecam.bsky.social #deer sighting. Under the shade of a tree, contemplating the day.

A young deer sitting in the shade of a tree, dappled sunlight, some red deckchairs in the background.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

An article about small penis jokes...by Neil Cocks.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Here's my dog, blissfully unaware of how terrible the world is, on his evening walk round Midsummer Common. It's comforting to think how good his life in the middle of human horror.

A slightly manic terrier cross looking out at the viewer from a field with four chestnut coloured cows in the background.

High summer sky, field of dried grass, dog in foreground sniffing the grass, a small cluster of cows behind.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

The OED updated their KILLJOY entry! Tobias Smollett is now cited as the 1st known instance of the term. 🎉 #C18thcentury #18thcenturyist (I might quibble at the description of it being Lord Vane's 'nickname, but I'll take it.) See Notes & Queries, academic.oup.com/nq/article/7... for my flag waving.

Screenshot of OED Online which shows entry for the term killjoy, now with Smollett's novel as the 1st known recorded instance of the term.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

It's hot & humid & I am lobotomized by marking so here's a reminder that I once did some research & writing. My chapter on male virgins in Sir Charles Grandison. Start reading for the 18thc gender insights, stay for the surprising finish on sexy male virgin fantasies in contemporary romance. #C18th

Screenshot of an ebook chapter on male virgins and misogyny in Sir Charles Grandison.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

Slowly digesting the info from the pump clinic at #Addenbrooke's hospital on Friday. Incredible educators, everyone so grateful to be finally getting an insulin pump. Now to decide which one. Thanks #NHS: it's an incredible opportunity. #Type1 #T1D

The kinetic sculture Asklepian by Ivan Black (b.1972). Several green, blue, yellow and red circles spiral up a central column, mimicking the structure of DNA.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

My batteries are 💀 so I'm missing #ASECS2025 this year. Me & my dogge are convalescing in the sunne—which is finally shining. I salute everyone keeping going in these dark times. Consider using yr discount on me & Bonnie Latimer's ed collection 'Revisiting Richardson' @bucknellupress.bsky.social

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

E.J. Thribb's lines on the anniversary of the Covid Pandemic. #PrivateEye

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Very much enjoying The Proof of my Innocence by @jonathancoe.bsky.social. Pitch perfect evocation of studying English at #Cambridge in the (ahem) not too distant past. The adulation of that particular don and his incomprehensible verse has toned down a tad, but the fetish for Difficulty remains.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

2 more hours of teaching and then the week staggers to a close. Thank goodness it's Friday. #RIPDavidLynch

A large slice of cherry pie on a yellow dish with a pot of tea.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Back when I was a baby academic, I wrote an essay on David Lynch's gothic phantasmagorias for a book edited by my friend FX Gleyzon. The world is sadder and shoddier without Lynch in it.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Thanks to the editors of The Shandean for including my article 'Gin Lane in Lockdown: @coldwarsteve.bsky.social's Hogarth' in the revamped journal. A labour of love & rage, the article makes an argument for why the #18thcentury matters now & why art matters for everyone. DM me if you'd like a copy.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Show me a picture on your phone that has your energy but isn't a selfie.

Cute bedraggled dog with its tongue out in long grass.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

At the Irish Embassy in London last night to celebrate the publication of Oliver Goldsmith in Context @cambridgeup.bsky.social. Great to meet up with other contributors including the brilliant Norma Clarke (+ bonus @willtosh.bsky.social ) and toast the editors.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Here's our magnificent cover: a little-known illustration of Richardson's 'Pamela' by Francis Hayman. 'The Elopement' decorated one of the original #Pamela supper-boxes at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Thanks to @nationaltrust.bsky.social who hold the original at Sizergh Castle, Cumbria. #18thcentury

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Proofs baby! 'Revisiting Richardson' is due out in April 2025 with Bucknell University Press.

Proofs of a contents page of an academic book, with a pen.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 21/10/2023

Bedridden thanks to a horrendously sprained ankle so snuggled up with Rocket and Lisa Tuttle's My Death.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 20/10/2023

Looking forward to discussing Charlotte Lennox with Catherine Pascal in Montpellier on 23rd of Nov. Come hear about "The unbearable laughter of being a woman: raillery, ridicule, and comic form in The Female Quixote." Zoom links available tinyurl.com/bdek5uja Thanks @sophievasset.bsky.social! #18thc

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 16/10/2023

2 biggish things off the desk. Mother out-of-law dispatched on plane. Tonight, spicy noodles and brief hiatus before the next thing. Sustained by the weekend's Dublin top-up and the prospect of another visit back to Norn Iron very soon.

Image of Dublin Bay from the window of a plane: blue sky, sunshine mirrored in the water.

Image of a bearded man reading in an oak panelled room with clerical figures on the wall.

Dun Laoighaire harbour in the sunshine. The water is a grey green on the horizon.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 02/10/2023

Re-reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by @patricknessbooks.bsky.social. Manchee's death even worse this time round due to this Good Boy.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 29/09/2023

I have a view of the UL from my office. I'm hoping to spend most of the next 6 months *inside* that Giles Gilbert Scott glory.

A tall University library tower against a bright blue sky. The square is framed by slender trees. The light is autumnal.

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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

HOORAY! 2 sessions for the 'boring #18th century' #ASECS2024. Looking forward to some scintillating scholarly conversation.

Call for papers entitled: the boring eighteenth century?

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