Conference Papers

“Beacons of the Future! Sherlock Holmes and Pedagogical Environments.” Victorian Encounters. (12th Annual VPFA Conference), University of Greenwich (online). July 2020.

“Narrative Sleights of Hand: Performance Magic in Cranford and Household Words.” Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Annual Conference. University of Brighton. July 2019.

“Victorian Tales of the Unexpected: Secular Magic and Narratives of Surprise in Nineteenth Century Detective Fiction.” Captivating Criminality 6: Metamorphoses of Crime. G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. June 2019.

“The Bullet Catch, or: Conjurors at War! Victorian Secular Magic in (and as) Conflict.” War and Peace (10^th Annual VPFA Conference), University of London. July 2018.

“Loveday Brooke and the Apocalyptic Crimes of Animality.” Captivating Criminality 5, Bath Spa University. June 2018.

“Grant Allen, the Death Penalty, and the Scene of Writing.” A Sudden, Swift Impression: Re-examining the Victorian Short Story. University of Brighton. January 2018.

“Her Dog’s Voice: Wilkie Collins, My Lady’s Money, and Rabies.” Victorian Animals, Liverpool John Moores University. November 2017.

“Who was the plagiarist?” Travel, Intellectual Property, and Boundary Crossings in Victorian Conjuror Biography.” Travel, Translation, and Communication. VPFA/University of London. July 2017.

“‘You See It?’ Sidney Paget, Visual Culture, and Sherlock Holmes.” Captivating Criminality: Crime Fiction Public and Private, Past and Present. Bath Spa University. June 2017.

“Loveday Brooke, Experimental Physiology, and the Crimes of Animality.” Medicine and Mystery: The Dark Side of Science in Victorian Fiction. NUI Galway. June 2017.

“Death Sentences: Grant Allen’s ‘Jerry Stokes’ and the Late Victorian Critique of Execution.” Lives, Trials, and Executions: Perspectives on Crime 1700-1900. Liverpool John Moores University. May 2017.

“Dangerous Dogs: My Lady’s Money and the 1870s Rabies Panic.” The Heart and Science of Wilkie Collins and his Contemporaries. Queen Mary University of London/Barts Pathology Museum. September 2016.

“The Magic of Opportunism: Conjuring and Episodic Form in Cranford.” Victorian Popular Genres (VPFA Annual Conference). Senate House, University of London. July 2016.

“Rhia Rama Rhoos or Khia Khan Khruse? Dickens’ Magical Artifice.” Victorian Artifice and Authenticity (VPFA Annual Conference), Senate House, University of London. July 2015.

“Silas K. Hocking and the Poetics of the Prolific.” Victorian Treasures and Trash (VPFA Annual Conference), Senate House, University of London. July 2014.

“Catherine Louisa Pirkis and the Victorian Question of the Animal.” Queens of Crime, Senate House, University of London. June 2014.

“V for Ventriloquism: Popular Culture and Authorship in Henry Cockton’s Valentine Vox.” Lesser Victorians, Trinity College Dublin. September 2013.

“Conjuring Numbers: Secular Magic and Serialisation in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford.” Nineteenth Century Numbers (BAVS Annual Conference), Royal Holloway University of London. August 2013.

“Conjuring Dickens: Authorship, Intellectual Property, and Secular Magic.” Dickens! Author and Authorship. University of California Santa Cruz. August 2012.

“Hand/Eye Co-ordination: Visual Deception in Dickens.” Dickens and the Visual Imagination. University of Surrey. July 2012.

“‘Like Tears in Rain’: Bleak House and Science Fiction.” The Other Dickens. University of Portsmouth. July 2012.

“‘My Public Shall Be the Reader, and My Stage a Book.’ Selling Conjuring and Conjuring Selling in Victorian Popular Narratives.” Selling Culture. Liverpool John Moores University. November 2010.

“Secular Magic and Agents of Change in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” Dickens as an Agent of Change. Saarland University. June 2010.

“Miracles for Sale: The Magician and the Medium in Detective Fiction.” Narrative Dominions, Reading University/University of London. July 2009.

“Prowlina Pry, Detective: Victorian Crime Fiction and the Social Purity Movement.” Crime Studies: Facts and Fictions. Newcastle University. May 2009.

“‘Well, This is Rather Queer!’ Magic and the Supernatural in Zuleika Dobson.” The Supernatural Diegesis in Popular Fiction. Liverpool John Moores University. November 2008.

“‘An Exclamatory O’: Bodies of Fear on the Victorian London Underground.” Victorian Feeling (BAVS Annual Conference). University of Leicester. September 2008.

“Obscure Arts: The Victorian Magician and the Amateur.” Art and Identity: Representations of Creative Labour in Literature and the Visual Arts 1830-1900. University of Exeter. July 2008.

“Tales of the Unintended: Marie Belloc Lowndes, Crime Narratives, Urban Legends, and Contamination.” Crime Cultures: Figuring Criminality in Literature, Media, and Film. University of Portsmouth. July 2008.

“Subterraneans: London Underground as Pathological Space.” War, Terrorism and Urban Unrest. Liverpool John Moores University. November 2007.

“‘Seeing the Past Through the Wrong End of the Telescope’: Daphne du Maurier and the Psychogeography of Castle Dor.” Daphne du Maurier Centenary Conference. University of Exeter. May 2007.

“Dick/ens: Bleak House and the Dystopia of Blade Runner.” Science Fiction and the Canon. Anglia Ruskin University. March 2007.

“Scientific Villains: (Anti)Vivisection and Victorian Popular Fiction.” Villains, Villainy and Justice in Popular Fiction, Liverpool John Moores University. November 2006.

“‘Cheap, Healthful literature’: The Strand Magazine, Fictions of Crime, and Purified Reading Communities.” Dickens Project Winter Conference, University of California Los Angeles. February 2006.

“Looking the Other Way: Illustration and Text in Victorian Detective Fiction.” Open to View: Popular Fiction and Visual Narrative, Liverpool John Moores University. November 2005.

“Marie Belloc Lowndes and the Afterlife of Victorian Criminality.” Victorians in the Long View: Contrasts and Continuities (BAVS Annual Conference). University of Gloucestershire. September 2005.

“Mrs. Hudson’s Soap: Conceptions of Purity in Victorian Detective Fiction.” Dickens Universe, University of California Santa Cruz. August 2005.

“Detective Fiction, Genre, and Purity.” The Detective Novel: Themes and Perspectives, Institut Catholique de Paris. May 2005.

“A Criminal Man of Many Faces: Grant Allen’s An African Millionaire and Francis Galton’s Composite Photography.” Victorian Visions, University of Cambridge. October 2004.

“After Sensation: Fergus Hume and the Success of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.” Victorian Sensations (BAVS Annual Conference). Keele University. September 2004.