Professor James Mussell
- Position: Professor of Nineteenth-Century Print Cultures
- Areas of expertise: nineteenth-century literature; history of the book; newspapers; periodicals; digital humanities; science and literature
- Email: J.E.P.Mussell@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 8079
- Location: House 6, 2nd Floor, room 17 School of English
- Website: jimmussell.com | Twitter | ORCID | White Rose
Profile
I am Professor of Nineteenth-Century Print Cultures at the University of Leeds and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Comparative History of Print (Centre CHoP).
I studied at the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield before completing a PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London in 2004. After completing my PhD I was postgraduate research assistant on the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition and taught at various universities in London. I was Lecturer at the University of Birmingham 2007–2013, taking up my post in Leeds that autumn.
Responsibilities
- Director of Research and Innovation
Research interests
My research focuses on the nineteenth-century media. My first book, Science, Time and Space in the Late Nineteenth-Century Periodical (Ashgate, 2007) looked at the way the forms of nineteenth-century periodicals affected the content within their pages. While this book was in press, I was working on the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008), a major edition of six periodicals and newspapers. This work led to my second book, The Nineteenth-Century Press in the Digital Age (Palgrave, 2012), which considered how the digitization of the nineteenth-century press changes our understanding of both press and period. 2012 also saw the publication of a co-edited book, W.T. Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary (British Library, 2012), a collection of essays that came out of the conference of the same name earlier that year. With Laurel Brake, I also edited a special issue of 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century on Stead, which appeared in Spring 2013.
More recently, I was the PI on an AHRC Research Network, 'Making Waves: Oliver Lodge and the Cultures of Science, 1875–1940' (2013–2015), which looked at the different facets of Oliver Lodge’s career. This led to the publication of a co-edited book (with Graeme Gooday), A Pioneer of Connection: Recovering the Life and Work of Oliver Lodge (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020). From 2015–2021 I served as Director of Centre CHoP, organising a number of events on campus and in the print room located in the basement of the School of English. In this capacity, I was PI on a second AHRC Research Network, Letterpress Printing: Past, Present, Future, which looked at the legacy of letterpress, both in terms of the equipment that survives and its influence on typographic culture. A co-edited book (with Caroline Archer-Parré), Letterpress Printing: Past, Present, Future was published by Peter Lang in 2023.
I am currently writing a monograph, provisionally entitled Whispers of Print, which looks at the way nineteenth-century printed texts reveal their contents.
I blog at jimmussell.com. You can follow me on Twitter @jimmussell.
Publications
Major publications
- (Ed., with Caroline Archer-Parré), Letterpress Printing: Past, Present, Future (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2023).
- (Ed., with Graeme Gooday), A Pioneer of Connection: Recovering the Life and Work of Oliver Lodge (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020).
- (Ed., with Laurel Brake), 'W.T.Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary', special issue of 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 16 (2013).
- (Ed., with Laurel Brake, Ed King, and Roger Luckhurst), W.T. Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary (London: British Library, 2012).
- The Nineteenth-Century Press in the Digital Age (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012).
- (Ed., with others), Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (ncse) (2008).
- Science, Time and Space in the Late Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press (Aldershot: Ashgate 2007).
Journal articles
- ‘Confused and Ill-Arranged: Reading Miscellaneity with Enquire Within’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 53 (2020), 496–519. Published version (£). A postprint version is available via the White Rose repository (OA).
- ‘Night Work or Night Play: Periodicals, Archives, and Poole’s Index’, Media (B)Orders Between Periodicals and Books. Miscellaneity and Classification in Nineteenth Century Magazines and Literature, Pfennig Magazin zur Journalliteratur 4 (2019), 34-43. A postprint version will be available from the White Rose repository will be available shortly (OA).
- 'Repetition: Or, "In Our Last"', Victorian Periodicals Review, 48 (2015), 343–58. Published version here (£). A postprint version is available via the White Rose repository here (OA).
- '"Of the Making of Magazines There is No End": W.T. Stead, Newness, and the Archival Imagination', English Studies in Canada, 41 (2015), 69-91. Published version here (£) or here (OA). A postprint version is available via the White Rose Repository here (OA).
- (with Imogen Clarke) 'Conservative Attitudes to Old-Established Organs: Oliver Lodge and Philosophical Magazine', Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science (2015). Published version available here (£). A postprint version is available from the White Rose Repository here (OA).
- '"Scarers in Print": Media Literacy from Our Mutual Friend to Friend Me On Facebook', Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, 21 (2013 [actually published in 2015]), pp. 163-179. The published version is here (OA) and there is a copy in the White Rose repository here (OA).
- 'Elemental Forms: The Newspaper as Popular Genre in the Nineteenth Century', Media History, 20 (2014), pp. 4-20. Published version available here (£). A postprint version is available in the White Rose Repository here (OA).
- 'Specular Reflections: John Brett and the Mirror of Venus', 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 17 (2013), pp. 1-19. Published version available here (OA) and via the White Rose Repository here (OA).
- (with Laurel Brake), ‘Introduction’, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 16 (2013), 1-7. Published version available here (OA) and in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'The Passing of Print: Digitizing Ephemera and the Ephemerality of the Digital’, Media History, 18 (2012), 77-92. Published version available here (£). A postprint version of this paper is available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA)
- 'Private Practices and Public Knowledge: Science, Professionalization and Gender in the Late Nineteenth Century’, Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, 5 (2009). Published version available here (OA). This is also available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Arthur Cowper Ranyard, Knowledge and the Reproduction of Astronomical Photographs in the Late Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press', British Journal for the History of Science, 42 (2009), pp. 321-344. Published version available here (£) or in Birmingham’s ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Cohering Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century: Form, Genre and Periodical Studies', Victorian Periodicals Review, 42 (2009), pp. 93-103. Published version available here (£) and in Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- ‘Nineteenth-Century Popular Science Magazines, Narrative, and the Problem of Historical Materiality‘, Journalism Studies, 8 (2007), pp. 656-666. Published version available here (£). There is a postprint version in Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- ‘Pandemic in print: the spread of influenza in the Fin de Siècle‘, Endeavour, 31 (2007), pp. 12-17.
- (with Suzanne Paylor) ‘Mapping the “Mighty Maze”: the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition’, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (2005). Published version available here (OA).
Chapters in books
- (with Caroline Archer-Parré) ‘Letterpress Printing: Past, Present, Future’, in Letterpress Printing: Past, Present, Future (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2023), pp. 1-16.
- ‘Trading in Death: Miscellaneity and Memory in the British Nineteenth-Century Press’, Reading Miscellanies, Miscellaneous Readings: Interrelations between Medial Formats, Novel Structures, and Reading Practices in the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Daniela Gretz, Marcus Krause, and Nico Pethes (Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2022), pp. 141-164.
- (with Graeme Gooday), ‘Oliver Lodge: Continuity and Communication’, in A Pioneer of Connection: Recovering the Life and Work of Oliver Lodge, ed. by James Mussell and Graeme Gooday (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), pp. 3-17.
- ‘“Body Separates: Spirit Unites”: Oliver Lodge and the Mediating Body’, in A Pioneer of Connection: Recovering the Life and Work of Oliver Lodge, ed. by James Mussell and Graeme Gooday (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), pp. 198-214.
- ‘“Seeking Nothing and Finding It”: Moving On and Staying Put in Mugby Junction’, Replication in the Long Nineteenth Century: Re-makings and Reproductions, edited by Linda Hughes and Julie Codell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018). A post-print version of this will be available via the White Rose repository here once the embargo is lifted (OA).
- ‘Beyond the “Great Index”: Digital Resources and Actual Copies’, Journalism and the Periodical Press in Nineteenth Century Britain, edited by Joanne Shattock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 17-30. A post-print version of this is available via the White Rose repository here (OA).
- Digitization’, Routledge Companion to Victorian Periodicals, edited by Andrew King, Alexis Easley, and John Morton (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), pp. 17-28. A post-print version of this will be available in the White Rose repository here soon (OA).
- ‘The Foundation and Early Years of the News of the World: “Capacious Double Sheets”’, ‘Journalism for the Rich, Journalism for the Poor’: The News of the World and the British Press, 1843-2011, edited by Laurel Brake, Chandrika Kaul, and Mark Turner (Palgrave, 2016), pp.11-26. Published version is here (£). A post-print version of this will be available in the White Rose repository here soon (OA).
- (with Richard Altick), ‘Publishing’, A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture, ed. by Herbert Tucker (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2014), pp.312-329.
- '"Characters of Blood and Flame": Stead and the Tabloid Campaign’, in W.T. Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary, edited by Laurel Brake, Ed King, Roger Luckhurst and James Mussell (London: British Library, 2012), pp. 22-36. A post-print version of this chapter is available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Doing and Making: History as Digital Practice', in History in the Digital Age, ed. by Toni Weller (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), pp. 79-94. A post-print version of this chapter is available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Writing the "Great Proteus of Disease": Influenza, Informatics, and the Body in the Late Nineteenth Century', in Minds Bodies Machines, 1790-1920, ed. by Deidre Coleman and Hilary Fraser (Palgrave: 2011), pp. 161-178. A post-print version of this chapter is available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Science', in Dickens in Context, ed. by Sally Ledger and Holly Furneaux (Cambridge University Press: 2011), pp. 326-333. A post-print version of this chapter is available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Science and the Timeliness of Reproduced Photographs in the Late Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press', in The Lure of Illustration, ed. by Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), pp. 203-219. A post-print version of this is available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- (with Suzanne Paylor), 'Editions and Archives: Textual Editing and the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (ncse)', in Text Editing, Print, and the Digital World, ed. by Marilyn Deegan and Kathryn Sutherland (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 137-158. A post-print version of this chapter is available in the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Bug-Hunting Editors: Competing Interpretations of Nature in Late Nineteenth-Century Natural History Periodicals', in (Re)creating Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. by Amanda Mordavsky Caleb (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007), pp. 81-96. The published version of this chapter is available via the University of Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- '"This is Ours and For Us": The Mechanic's Magazine and low scientific culture in Regency London’, in Repositioning Victorian Sciences, ed. by David Clifford et al. (London: Anthem Press 2006), pp. 107-118.
Shorter articles and posts
- ‘Science Periodicals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Constructing Scientific Communities, ed. by Gowan Dawson, Bernard Lightman, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. Pp. 424. $55.00 (cloth)’, Journal of British Studies, 62:1 (2020), 279-280. Published version (here) (£). A post-print version is available via the White Rose Repository here (OA).
- ‘Clare Pettitt, Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 368pp. ISBN 9780198830429’, Journal of European Periodical Studies, 7:2 (2023), 167-170. Published version available here (OA).
- ‘”A Revolution in the Making”: Theory, Practice, Print Culture’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 26 (2021), 355-6. Published version available here (OA). A post-print version will be available in the White Rose Repository here (OA) soon.
- ‘Maurice S. Lee. Overwhelmed: Literature, Aesthetics, and the Nineteenth-Century Information Revolution’, Journal of English Studies, 71 (2020), 1003-1005.
- ‘The Scientific Journal: Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century, by Alex Csiszar; pp. xii + 376. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2018, $45.00, $35.00 paper, £34.00, £28.00 paper’, Victorian Studies, 62 (2020), 490-492.
- ‘Index: Periodical Parts and the Bookish Afterlife’, Victorian Review, 43 (2018), 204-7. This is available via the journal here (£). There is a postprint version in the White Rose Repository here (OA).
- Review of Howard Cox and Simon Mowatt, Revolutions from Grub Street: A History of Magazine Publishing in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Sharp News, 25:1 (2016), 11.
- ‘Moving On By Staying the Same’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 21 (2016), 1-7. Published version here (£). A post-print version of this is available via the White Rose repository here (OA).
- ‘Newspapers’, Blackwell Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature, ed. by Dino Franco Felluga, Pamela K. Gilbert, and Linda K. Hughes (Blackwell, 2015). Available via Blackwell Reference Online here (£). A postprint version will be available from the White Rose Repository soon.
- '"In Chancery", Again', Dickens Our Mutual Friend Reading Project (1 February 2015). Available here (OA).
- Five contributions to '(Re)Presenting the Archive', Archive Journal, 4 (2014). Published version available here (OA).
- Review of Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era, Media History, 21 (2015), pp. 121-122. Published version here (£).
- Review of Raw Data is an Oxymoron, Media History, 20 (2014), pp. 105-6. Published version here (£).
- 'BJHS: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow', Viewpoint: Magazine for the British Society for the History of Science, 99 (October 2012), pp. 1-2. This is available from the BSHS here. I have also published this as a blog post here.
- 'Blogging about Hacking the Book', Journal of Victorian Culture Online (20 August 2012). Published version available here (OA).
- 'Teaching Nineteenth-Century Periodicals Using Digital Resources: Myths and Methods', Victorian Periodicals Review, 45 (2012), pp. 201-209. Published version available here (£) and in Birmingham's ePrints repository here (OA).
- Review of Dallas Liddle, The Dynamics of Genre: Journalism and the Practice of Literature in Mid-Victorian Britain (Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2009), English Studies, 92 (2011), pp. 113-4. Published version available here (£).
- 'Review of ProQuest Historical Newspapers, (review no. 1096)', Reviews in History (June 2011). Published version available here (OA).
- 'Ownership, Institutions, Methodology', roundtable contribution to Journal of Victorian Culture, 13 (2008), 94-100. Published version available here (£) or in Birmingham’s ePrints repository here (OA).
- 'Digital Culture, Materiality and Nineteenth-Century Studies', forum contribution to 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (2008). Published version available here (OA) and in the University of Birmingham's ePrints Repository here.
- Thirteen contributions to the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism (Proquest; British Library and Academia Press 2008).
- Reviw of Grace Eckley, Maiden Tribute: A Life of W.T. Stead (Xlibris 2007), Sharp News, 18 (2009), 12.
- Review of Christine Ferguson, Language, Science and Popular Fiction in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle: the Brutal Tongue (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), English Literature in Transition, 50 (2007), 339-343. Published version here (£).
- Review of Geoffrey Cantor et al., Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: Reading the Magazine of Nature (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2004), Science Serialized: Representations of the Sciences in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, edited by Geoffrey Cantor and Sally Shuttleworth (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press 2004), Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media, edited by Louise Henson et al. (Aldershot: Ashgate 2004), Media History, 12 (2006), 225-231.
- ‘The “Reviewers Reviewed”: Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical’, a review essay in Metascience, 14 (2005), pp. 363-370. Published version available here (£).
Student education
I teach widely across the School of English, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. At the moment, I usually offer two modules, Victoria’s Secrets: Secrecy in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture’ (undergraduate) and Victorian New Media (postgraduate). I usually also contribute to the undergraduate core module Victorian Literature.
I am happy to supervise doctoral students in the following areas:
- Victorian literature and culture
- Literature and science
- Digital humanities
- media history / print culture
Contact me if you’re interested in pursuing doctoral research in any of these areas (or those aligned).
Research groups and institutes
- Textual Histories Research Group
- Centre for the Comparative History of Print