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Locating the Victorians
From: Science Museum and The Victoria and Albert Museum
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| Playing at Doctors (detail). | |
A major international conference, London, 12-15 July 2001
 elcome to Locating the Victorians, the largest conference of its kind to be held anywhere in the world, hosted by the Science Museum, London. The conference forms part of a year of Victorian-themed activity taking place in two South Kensington museums (the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, both Fathom partners)--a cultural quarter dedicated to the arts and sciences, funded from the profits of the 1851 Great Exhibition. |
Certainly, from Dickens and Darwin to Oscar Wilde and Florence Nightingale, many Victorians have retained the household familiarity that they achieved in their own era. The year 2001 marks the 150th anniversary of the Great Exhibition and the centenary of the death of Queen Victoria. These anniversaries provide an opportunity to review our interpretation of the culture of the Victorian period. |
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| Playing at Doctors (detail). | |
The conference was designed to demonstrate the many ways in which historians have been crossing traditional boundaries: between such topics as medicine and aesthetics, and technological visions of alternative realities and artistic ones. Fathom offers a window on the conference, bringing the Victorians to a twenty-first-century audience via the Web. |
In addition to a selection of papers and audio recordings from the daily programme, which covers 21 themes, the highlights from the conference will be featured prominently on Fathom over the coming weeks, including video footage of three of the plenary lectures:
- In the Shadow of the Victorians? The 19th Century in the 20th Century
David Cannadine
- Science, Satire, Empathy
Gillian Beer
- Darwin, George Eliot, and Culture's Malthusian Turn
Catherine Gallagher
Additionally, Fathom will host interviews and commentary from selected speakers, reference materials pertaining to Victorian themes and individuals, selected reading and more. Existing items on Fathom will also be incorporated to form a unique Victorian centre of learning, navigable through Fathom's system of trails and features. These materials will continue to be updated regularly, and will provide a record of the conference as well as an essential tool for all those with an interest in Victoriana. |
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| Frederick Daniel Hardy, Playing at Doctors, plus details (1863). Courtesy of the V&A. | |
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