The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals hosts an ongoing series of digital events that are free and open to the public. You do not need to be a member of RSVP to attend these events, though we hope you’ll consider becoming one if you participate!
Events are typically scheduled on a Friday of each month at 8 a.m. PST / 4 p.m. UK (with a few months off around RSVP’s annual conference in June or July). Upcoming events are announced via our blog and social media channels, as well as our monthly newsletter. While all RSVP digital events are free, attendees must register for the event to receive a Zoom link to join.
Below is a record of our many panels, interviews, lectures, workshops, roundtables, and discussions, all of which connect us with our colleagues and the Victorian periodicals we love.
Please note: Not all events are recorded. We have included links to event recordings found on our YouTube channel, as well as chat transcripts, where available.
Recent & Upcoming Digital Events
Our Fall Digital Events Lineup
We have several exciting Digital Events on the horizon for the latter half of 2026! We also know calendars and diaries fill up quickly, especially when approaching the holiday season. Below you will find the topics, dates, and speakers of our upcoming digital events.
All events take place on a Friday …
How to Conference Effectively
A Professional Development Workshop –
RSVP is pleased to kick off our fall Digital Events series by welcoming our 2026 conference committee members Jessica Valdez, Caroline Jones, and Sharin Schroder for a Professional Development Workshop on Conferences and Conferencing. Our speakers will give …
Upcoming Digital Events in June
Join us for an action-packed month of digital fun in June! We’re kicking off summer with a series of digital events throughout the month, including a few pre-conference panel and a collaborative event co-hosted with the Empire & Colonialism Caucus of the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) …
2026 Digital Events
June 12
Joint Pick-a-Periodical / Caucus Salon
Together with NAVSA’s Empire & Colonialism Caucus, RSVP co-hosted Dr. Gigi Tang for this joint digital event. Dr. Tang invited participants to review the 1904 issue of South Africa, which covered a critical moment in South African labor history — the importation of indentured Chinese workers to the Witwatersrand gold mines, one of the most controversial labor schemes in imperial South African mining.
Periodical: South Africa, 1904
Presenter: Dr. Gigi Tang
May 15
VPR Roundtable: Expanding Periodical Studies
This roundtable event welcomed past winners of Victorian Periodical Review‘s Expanding the Field Prize, who discussed how their articles expand the scope of Victorian periodical studies and speculated on where the field could go next.
Panelists: Sourav Chatterjee, Tarini Bhamburkar, and Nilkantha Pal
Moderator: VPR Editor Katherine Malone
April 17
Speaker’s Forum: Graham Law
In this talk, Graham Law illuminated The Times’s occasional, surreptitious practice of commissioning letters to the editor during the late 1850s. Drawing upon his archival research on the Times Editorial Diaries held in the News UK Archive in Essex, Graham argued this practice was driven by the newspaper’s efforts to maintain its quasi-monopolistic position within a media landscape transformed by financial and editorial competition through two case studies of such “compensated” correspondence.
March 6
Pick-A-Periodical: Forget Me Not for 1825 & 1833
In this “Pick A Periodical” event, Katherine D. Harris invited attendees to consider “The Racial Anxieties of Polite Culture in the Forget Me Not British Literary Annual” for the volumes 1825 and 1833. As “periodical[s] masquerading as luxury” items, these two volumes offer a view of empire as a benevolent global order, though both the editor and publisher of Forget Me Not were German immigrants.
Periodical: Forget Me Not for 1825 and 1833
Presenter: Dr. Katherine D. Harris
February 27
The Transnational British Press in Non-Anglophone Countries
During this roundtable event, the co-editors and contributors to The Edinburgh History of the Transnational British Press in Non-Anglophone Countries, 1800-1914 (2025) shared their research and insights from the collection. After an introduction to the project by the editors, six contributors gave brief “lightning talks” on their chapters, followed by a robust Q&A.
Moderators: Diana Cooper-Richet and Isabelle Richet, with Tarini Bhamburkar
Speakers: Burhan Çağlar, Michael Lörch, Will Hanley, Aled Jones, Jennifer Hayward, and Michelle Prain-Brice
January 23
Speaker’s Forum: Beth Gaskell
In this talk for our Speaker’s Forum series, Beth Gaskell took us on an exclusive tour of the British Library’s newspaper archives in a talk entitled “Yesterday’s News: Behind the Scenes at the British National Newspaper Collection.” After a brief history of newspaper collecting at the British Library, Beth shared about the challenges of current collection management, touching on topics such as acquisition, storage, conservation, and digitisation.
2025 Digital Events
December 12
Book Launch: Required Reading
We invited Priyasha Mukhopadhyay (Yale University) to talk about her award-winning new book, Required Reading: The Life of Everyday Texts in the British Empire (Princeton UP 2024), which explores how historical readers in late 19th- and early 20th-century South Asia responded to texts ranging from licenses to manuals and what this can tell us about their experiences living in the shadow of a vast imperial power.
November 21
How to Get Published
In this record-breaking event in terms of attendance, we welcomed three editors of peer-reviewed journals in Victorian studies who de-mystified the process of getting published in an academic journal.
Panelists: Devin M. Garofalo (Victorian Poetry), Katherine Malone (VPR), and Janice Schoreder (Victorian Review)
Moderators: Vic Bartness and Gillian Walters, RSVP Grad Reps
October 17
A Curran Index Update
In a talk entitled “From Periodicals to Dailies: Attribution Scholarship and the Joys and Challenges of Attribution Research,” Emily Middleton, Co-Editor of the Curran Index (with Lars Atkin) discussed how the addition of dailies to the Index has afforded new research opportunities as well as challenges.
September 5
A Grants-Crafting Workshop
During this workshop aimed at graduate students and early career researchers, our panel of experts offered their tips, tricks, and general advice on applying for RSVP’s Curran Fellowships and other awards for prospective applicants, tackling the process from various points of view (e.g., as an applicant, applicant and award winner, and adjudicant).
Panelists: Michael de Nie, Jim Mussell, and Candace Ward
Moderator: Clare Horrocks
May 9
2025 Colby Lecture
Our Colby Book Prize lecture was held virtually this year ahead of the annual conference as part of our 2025 Digital Events for the spring. We heard from Hamish Fraser (Professor Emeritus, Strathclyde University, Scotland) about his award-winning book, The Edinburgh History of Scottish Newspapers, 1850-1950 (Edinburgh UP, 2023).
April 11
Book Launch: Digital Victorians
We celebrated Paul Fyfe’s latest monograph, Digital Victorians: From Nineteenth-Century Media to Digital Humanities (Stanford UP, 2024), which reveals how transformations of nineteenth-century media anticipate modern digital information challenges we encounter everyday. After some remarks on the book’s more periodicals-focused interventions, we enjoyed a robust discussion inspired by the book.
March 21
Pick-A-Periodical: The Pictorial World in 1883
During this Pick-a-Periodical event, Dr. Bethan Stevens walked attendees through the 1882-1883 volume of The Pictorial World (1874-1892), when it was at its most ambitious during its brief editorship by the illustrious Dalziel Brothers. Her talk, “The Pictorial World in 1883: From Illustrated Magazine to Exhibition Space,” focused on the large-scale art prints published by the magazine and the exploitation of its London office on the Strand as a kind of quasi-exhibition space.
Periodical: The Pictorial World for 1882-1883
Presenter: Dr. Bethan Stevens
February 28
Speaker’s Forum: Stephan Pigeon
In this talk for our Speaker’s Forum series, Stephan Pigeon shared his recent work on the origins and early history of the Institute of Journalists in a talk entitled, “‘To clear the black sheep out of journalism’: Making the Institute of Journalists, 1884-1903.” The talk centered on the debates amongs members of what became known as the Institute of Journalists on what it meant to be a “professional journalist” at the fin de siècle.
January 17
Book Launch: The Edinburgh Companion to British Colonial Periodicals
During this book launch event, we heard from several of the contributors to The Edinburgh Companion to British Colonial Periodicals (Edinburgh UP, 2024), the first ever large-scale attempt to gather research on British colonial periodicals within one volume.
Participants: G. Arunima, Priti Joshi, Lize Kirel, Honor Rieley, and Candace Ward
Moderators: David Finkelstein and David Johnson (editors)
2024 Digital Events
November 22
An Oral Festschrift in Honor of Brian Maidment
Several RSVP members, friends, and colleagues met to celebrate Brian Maidment and thank him for all of his work for the organization and the field of periodical studies. The event included numerous tributes about Brian’s work, its outsized impact on the work of other periodicals scholars, and the field as a whole, followed by a self-deprecating and very characteristic response from Brian himself, who was in attendance.
At his request, the event recording has been kept private for his family’s enjoyment and for those who were in attendance. Brian later passed away in January 2025. You can read RSVP’s tribute to Brian on our blog.
November 1
Publishing Academic Research: Top Tips from a Publisher
Sponsored by RSVP’s Graduate Representatives, Matthew Stephens interviewed two guests from the Edinburgh University Press, Elizabeth Fraser and Alex Oxford, on how to navigate the academic publishing process. The conversation and Q&A was enlightening, lively, and our most popular digital event to date!
Panelists: Elizabeth Fraser and Alex Oxford
Moderator: Matthew Stephens
October 11
Eliza Orme’s Leader Writing: A Challenge to Periodical Studies
Leslie Howsam issues a “Challenge to Periodical Studies” through the work of Eliza Orme, Britain’s first woman lawyer, and her many contributions to the 19th-century periodical press. She called on the collective expertise of our participants to consider how best to understand this kind of occasional political journalism.
September 13
Joint Book Launch: Model Women of the Press and Billy Waters is Dancing
In this joint book launch, we celebrated new scholarship from two long-time RSVP supporters and (former) Board members, Teja Varma Pusapati‘s Model Women of the Press: Gender, Politics and Women’s Professional Journalism, 1850–1880 (Routledge 2024) and Mary Shannon’s Billy Waters is Dancing: Or, How a Black Sailor Found Fame in Regency Britain (Yale 2024).
August 30
Book Launch: British Writers, Popular Literature & New Media Innovation
In this star-studded book launch, we heard from contributors to British Writers, Popular Literature and New Media Innovation, 1820-1845 (Edinburgh UP, 2024), who discussed the collection’s focus on the emergence of a mass reading public during the early decades of the nineteenth century.
Participants: Brian Maidment, Linda Hughes, Jennie Batchelor, Caley Ehnes, Helena Goodwyn, Sofia Prado Huggins, Françoise Baillet, and Elizabeth Howard
Moderator: Alexis Easley (editor)
August 9
“Class” Periodicals: Contents, Categories, Publics
Our panelists presented short papers addressing the emergence of “class” periodicals, a term developed to evade the stamp tax, and their delineation of “general news”; their characteristics and audiences; and the various genres of journalism they impacted.
Panelists: Ali Hatapçi, Jamie Horrocks, and Sally Frampton
Moderator: Ali Hatapçi
July 19
Book Launch: Periodical Studies Today
Continuing our exploration of the state of the field, this event featured a roundtable of contributors to Periodical Studies Today: Multidisciplinary Analyses (Brill 2022), who discussed periodicals as relational artefacts and explored new and multidisciplinary ways to analyze them.
Participants: Andreas Beck, Sabina Fazli, Florian Freitag, Vincent Fröhlich, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, and Mark Noonan
Moderators: Jutta Ernst and Oliver Scheiding (editors, with Dagmar von Hoff)
May 17
Pick-A-Periodical:
The Secular Chronicle
In this “Pick-A-Periodical,” Clare Stainthorp led a discussion on The Secular Chronicle, which served atheist, agnostic, and freethinking audiences throughout Victorian Britain, and one of the first freethought periodicals to print large-scale front-page illustrations.
Periodical: Volume 9 of The Secular Chronicle (Jan. – Jun. 1878)
Presenter: Clare Stainthorp
April 12
The Future of Periodical Studies
In this reflective event, VPR editors past and present offered their perspectives on how periodical studies has developed, discussing borders new and old, territories still unmapped, routes opened, roads not taken, and predictions for the next generation.
Panelists: Kathryn Ledbetter (editor 2007-2012), Alexis Easley (2012-2018), and Katherine Malone (2018-present)
Moderator: Leslie Howsam
March 1
The Women of Punch
We kicked off Women’s History Month with a Punch! Inspired by author-attribution projects like the Curran Index, Dr. Clare Horrocks and associates introduced their ongoing digital exhibition on the women who contributed to Punch. They also reflected on the processes of digital curation and how digital tools help scholars “pierce the curtain of anonymity” (Simons, 2021).
February 16
Exploring the 19th Century
with HathiTrust
Director of the HathiTurst Research Center, John Walsh, presented “‘On the dusty shelves of libraries’: Exploring the 19th-century with the HathiTrust Digital Library,” and taught us about the HathiTrust’s many resources, tools, and services for computational analysis.
January 19
Speaker’s Forum:
Tarini Bhamburkar
Part of our Speaker’s Forum series, our inaugural event for 2024 was led by Tarini Bhamburka, who presented on her study of transnational feminism in a talk entitled, “Characterising the ‘New Indian Woman’: Indian Feminism and Indian Women’s Interviews in the Women’s Penny Paper and The Woman’s Signal.”
2023 Digital Events
October 27
Collaborative Learning: The Curran Index
A collaborative learning session with Dr. Lars Atkin, co-editor of The Curran Index, and Philipia Hatziandreou, intern for Curran Index co-editor Dr. Emily Bell (who was out sick) about the work of attribution in historical periodicals research.
October 12
Writing Your Curran Application with Russ Wyland
A practical workshop from Russ Wyland, a long-time RSVP member and Curran Award Committee member, who provided concrete advice on writing competitive grant applications, specifically for RSVP’s annual Curran Fellowship awards.
September 8
The Art Historians are Coming!
Presentations from two art historians who presented on imagery in transnational periodicals. Hala’s talk covered the illustrations in nineteenth-century Arabic periodicals published in Egypt and Ottoman Syria. Tom’s talk focused on the global spread of lithography and portrait format within periodicals.
Panelists: Hala Auji and Tom Young
Moderator: Priti Joshi
August 4
Manuscript Periodicals in the Long 19th Century
A panel presentation from experts working with manuscript periodicals that explored themes such as reading communities, the relationship between manuscript magazines and their print counterparts, and the way that local and national events come together in these small-scale, home-grown magazines.
Panelists: Catherine Sloan and Abigail Droge
Moderator: Katy Birch
June 9
Richard Altick’s Shows of London
An informal reading group discussion on Richard Altick’s seminal text, The Shows of London (1978). Attendees were asked to read a few token chapters as they were able and then come for a seminar-style discussion of the text and its relevance in expanding our research methods into the wider Victorian media ecosystem.
Text: Altick, The Shows of London (1978)
Discussion Leader: Matt Poland
May 5
Pick-A-Periodical: Press News
In this “Pick-A-Periodical,” longtime RSVP member Patrick Leary took us through one of his favorite little-known trade journals, Press News, which covered the “news” of everything to do with print journalism as seen from the print-shop floor.
Periodical: Press News (or formally, The London, Colonial and Provincial Press News)
Presenter: Patrick Leary
April 7
Collaborative Learning Workshop with Jiwon Min
In a collaborative learning and troubleshooting workshop, Jiwon Min presented on her interdisciplinary research project, “The Making and Unmaking of Krakatau: Reading Nineteenth Century Periodicals, the Volcano and Climate Change,” which explored the various international responses to the Krakatau eruption in the late nineteenth-century.
March 1
Speaker’s Forum:
Maryam Sikander
As the inaugural presenter in our new Speaker’s Forum series, Maryam Sikander presented her research on the relationship between Punch and its Indian rendtion, Avadh Punch, in a talk entitled, “Avadh Punch (1877-1938): Transformation of Colonial Text and Context.”
February 3
Pick-A-Periodical: The Yellow Book
Our inaugural “Pick-A-Periodical” event, in which we ask an RSVP member to select an issue (or short range) of a periodical for attendees to review ahead of the talk. The event itself is devoted to discussing the text collaboratively, drawing on the lead’s expertise and observations from attendees.
Periodical: Volume 5 of The Yellow Book (April 1895)
Presenter: Dr. Lorraine Kooistra
2022 Digital Events
In 2022, we co-sponsored a few digital and hybrid events with partner organizations.
December 8
Seminar on The Foreign Language Press
In this online seminar, we heard from colleagues affiliated with TransfoPress, a transnational network for the study of the foreign language press from the eighteenth to the twentieth-century. The seminar was jointly sponsored by RSVP and the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit).
Speakers: Diana Cooper-Richet, Jennifer Hayward, Michelle Prain, Nicolas Pitsos, and Isabelle Richet
May 21
Four Nations and Beyond Workshop
This one-day workshop, “Four Nations and Beyond: Periodical Studies & National Identities in the British Isles and Ireland” explored how Victorian periodical and newspaper cultures operated in the different nations of the British Isles and Ireland, and in their diaspora cultures that emerged through emigration and imperialism. It was a hybrid event held at Trades Hall, Glasgow, Scotland and jointly sponsored with the Scottish Centre for Victorian and Neo-Victorian Studies (SCVS).
Presentations by: Karin Koehler, Lisa Peters, Niamh Coffey, Michael Shaw, Charlotte Lauder, David Finkelstein, Sarah Sharp, Mila Daskalova, Erick Boustead, Emily Smith, Alison Chapman, and Kirstie Blair
Organized & Moderated by: Fionnuala Dillane and Kirstie Blair
View the program and select papers and presentations from the workshop on the SCVS website.
March 31
Multilingualism and Periodical Studies
This two-part online workshop brought together scholars and researchers on the topic of multilingualism in periodicals scholarship. It highlighted ongoing projects in academic research across languages, and discussed the challenges and possibilities that pertain to multilingual approaches. It was held in partnership with the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit).
Research Presentations by: Lucía Campanella, Eloïse Forrestier, Sara Hernández Angulo, Jana Keck, Sara Marzagora, and Lindsay Wilhelm
Roundtable Discussants: Meghan Forbes, Aled Gruffydd Jones, Sukeshi Kamra, Klaudia Lee, Michelle Prain Brice, and Marianne Van Remoortel
2021 Digital Salon Events
May 21
Doing Research as an Independent Scholar
A live (and lively!) Q&A session with highly acclaimed independent scholars on how to research/write when not affiliated with a university.
Panelists: Judith Flanders, Helen Rappaport, Marie Léger-St-Jean, and Patrick Leary
Moderator: Kaari Newman
April 22
Household Words: How to Do Primary Research at Home
A roundtable discussion on the resources and methods that enable us to research Victorian periodical culture during the Covid-19 pandemic (and beyond).
Panelists: Emily Bell, Stephen Basdeo, and Jessica Elizabeth Thomas
Moderator: Rebecca Nesvet
April 12
A Zotero Workshop with Marie Léger-St-Jean
Born out of our February brainstorming session, Marie kindly took us through the finer points of using Zotero, an open-source software for organizing research.
March 19
Teaching Periodical Studies Online
A panel presentation on how to teach periodicals online. Our panelists described the creative ways they use digital affordances to connect students with Victorian periodicals research, especially in the time of distance learning.
Panelists: Melissa Range, Jennifer Phegley, Lindsay Lawrence, and James Mussell
Moderator: Helena Goodwyn
To access or download the assignments/activities discussed by our panelists, visit our Teaching Materials page.
February 12
Doing Periodical Research Online
An informal roundtable led by grad students/early career researchers, for grad students/early career researchers, on how to make the most of online periodical resources and how to optimize your research process.
Panelists: Madeline Gangnes, Kaari Newman, Matthew Poland, Mercedes Sheldon, and Jessica Terekhov
This event was not recorded in support of open discussion. Download the list of resources we brainstormed.
January 22
A Discussion on Decolonizing Periodical Studies
A practice-based session with invited experts whose research at the intersection of critical race studies/transimperialism and periodical studies laid the foundation for a robust discussion and lively online chat.
Panelists: Caroline Bressey, Priti Joshi, and Candace Ward
Moderator: Lars Atkin
Race and Transimperialism in Periodicals — A Workshop Series
May 10
Megan Kuster (University College Dublin), “Returning Citation: The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Natural Science and Indigenous Agents”
October 21
Vaibhav Singh (University of Reading), “The Making of Transimperial Technological Networks: A Case-Study of Select Marathi Periodicals”
December 16
Kendall A. Johnson (University of Hong Kong), “Framing the Syrian Monument of Xi’an in The Chinese Repository (1832-1851): American Beatitudes of Commercial Christendom, from the Foundation to Destruction of the Canton Mission Press”
2020 RSVP Digital Salon
Due to concerns about safe travel during the global COVID-19 pandemic, RSVP was forced to reimagine its 2020 conference, originally to be held at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA. In lieu of an in-person conference, we hosted a series of free online events designed to connect our socially distanced members and colleagues.
Our inaugural “digital salon” consisted of four sessions convened over the original conference dates, September 10-12, 2020. It included:
- A Colby Book Prize Interview with Dr. Thomas Smits (Utrecht University), winner of the 2020 Colby Book Prize, about his new book, The European Illustrated Press and the Emergence of a Transnational Visual Culture of the News, 1842-1870 (Routledge). The session was chaired by Andrew Hobbs.
- A Digital Humanities and Periodical Scholarship Roundtable with:
- Troy Bassett (Purdue University Fort Wayne), At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837-1901
- Jesse Erickson (University of Delaware), Ouidiana and America’s Black Press
- Marie Léger-St-Jean (Independent Scholar), Price One Penny: Cheap Literature, 1837-1860, a 2020 RSVP Field Development Grant recipient
- Jessie Reeder (SUNY Binghamton), British Chilean News: Digitizing the 19th-Century British Press in Chile, a 2018 RSVP Field Development Grant recipient
- Matthew Poland (University of Washington), Moderator
- A “Twitter Taster” event previewing scholarly work by RSVP members:
- Helena Goodwyn, The Author Evolution: Walter Besant’s Pellucid Prose
- Andrew King, Circulating Rhythms: Victorian Trade Periodicals and Everyday Myths
- Laura Fiss, Andrew Fiss & Michelle Jarvie-Eggart, ‘Pioneer of the Technical and Trade Press of the World’: Mining Periodicals in the Holdings of Michigan Technological University
- Justin Gilbert & Marie Léger-St-Jean, Gabriel Alexander and G.W.M. Reynolds: Changing Bylines and the Transatlantic Circulation of Penny-Number Revolutionary William Wallace
- Alexis Easley, The Reprinting of the Brontës’ Poetry in the Periodical Press, 1846-99
- Kirstie Blair, Factory Times
- Kaari Newman, Circulations of Civil War: The American Civil War According to the Preston Chronicle
- An RSVP Social Hour based on Ann M. Hale’s Nineteenth-Century Periodicals Lockdown House meme. The meme asked us to choose a set of historical figures to join for the duration of the pandemic. Inspired by the lively social media conversations that ensued, we sought to create a similar atmosphere in cyberspace to chat with colleagues and mingle with a select group of Victorians, where we could never escape the inimitable Dickens!