Current Projects

 

'The East India Company at Home, c.1757-1857'

I am currently working as a Research Fellow on the Leverhulme Trust-funded project 'The East India Company at Home, c.1757-1857'.

This project builds on new developments in the study of consumer society, material culture and globalisation by examining domestic interiors. More specifically, it seeks to increase historical understanding of the forms and functions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century country houses by assessing change over time in British domestic interiors and by locating those changes within a wider global context.

 

'Material Goods and Moving Hands: Perceiving Production in Georgian England'

I am currently adapting my PhD dissertation for publication as a monograph, provisionally titled 'Material Goods and Moving Hands: Perceiving Production in Georgian England'.

Material culture flourished in Georgian England. People began to own objects in greater numbers and varieties. At the same time they demonstrated an active interest in how these objects were manufactured. 'Material Goods and Moving Hands' considers why and how people took an interest in production. It demonstrates how visual access to labour became increasingly privileged by analysing industrial tours and the pamphlets and writings that tried to replace them. This project also shows how those involved in production - the manufacturers, designers and workers who actually made objects - perceived it. In doing so, it demonstrates how objects acted as conduits through which people learned about the material world.

 

'Female Touch in Eighteenth-Century England'

 

I have an article forthcoming in the Journal of Design History, which explores how shoppers used touch not only to make decisions about quality, but also as a means of building and expanding their ideas about quality and design in general. In future research I hope to explore other means by which eighteenth-century people employed and valued touch in what was an increasingly visual world. I am particularly interested in examining the gendered dynamics of touch in this period.