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This case study focuses on the social and educational benefit to local Lincolnshire communities of English research at Lincoln on life writing, creative uses of oral history and literary and dramatic representations of marginalised communities. In particular, it highlights the ways in which research in this area has led to knowledge transfer as a means of empowering rural communities through helping community groups to research, write, document, represent and disseminate their own stories. These acts of recovery have contributed to the self-realisation and empowerment of individuals and have enabled cross-generational connections and community cohesion. English research at Lincoln in these areas spans the 18th to 21st-centuries and has developed over nine years. Research activities in this area include a conference, a festival, publications, public talks and two related Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded projects (details below).
Research demonstrating the innovative contributions of early women writers to the cultural, socio-political, and economic life of their period has enhanced and broadened understanding of British and European literary traditions. It has contributed intellectually and economically to the heritage industry through Chawton House Library (CHL), a registered charity promoting early women's writing, and a range of other public organisations. Key findings of the research have been used to reinvigorate secondary school teaching and inspire those who occupy leadership roles in education, inform television documentary makers, and enthuse old and new readers internationally.
Researchers in Warwick's English Department have offered new perspectives on Britain's cultural and literary heritage by re-evaluating authors: both the very well-known (Dickens), the obscure (Charlotte Smith), and the otherwise forgotten (seventeenth-century women writers whose writing in manuscript would, without extensive archival recovery, be lost to view). The research has increased public understanding of Britain's rich literary history by inspiring new forms of traditional and digital art, public events and exhibitions, improved tourist information, and has led to the preservation and presentation of many literary artefacts through the creation of digital resources.
The impact of this case study is located in uncovering the contribution of Margaret Collier to the Anglo-Italian literary and cultural relations from Risorgimento to Resistance through her individual initiative as well as her legacy in the literary works and political commitment of her daughter, Giacinta Galletti, and grand-daughter, Joyce Salvadori. Impact is achieved through disseminating and promoting the understanding of this lesser-known intergenerational female legacy nationally and internationally through publications, conferences, and lectures in public domains; in translating texts previously available only in Italian; in broadening the knowledge of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literary communities in Italy; and in deepening the understanding of concepts of nationality, multiculturalism, migration, otherness and difference.
Dr. Zoë Kinsley's research focuses on British home tour travel writing by women and a significant part of her work in that field has involved the study of manuscript travel journals held in libraries and county record offices, the majority of which had received little or no critical attention prior to her own research work. She has undertaken a series of public engagement activities within Greater Manchester and Yorkshire, focused on the manuscript writings of Dorothy Richardson and other women travelling in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which encourage greater use of and interest in local archive services, enrich understanding of local history in the North of England, and assist in the preservation of regional literary heritage. These events, all of which took the form of workshops which encouraged discussion and debate between participants, have taken place in partnership with Wigan Archives Service, Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre, and the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
Research into seventeenth-century Quaker writings conducted at Loughborough University by Prof. Elaine Hobby and Dr Catie Gill has enriched the cultural and spiritual lives of modern-day Quakers, and that of others interested in the Quaker movement. This has been achieved both through their involvement in an advisory capacity at Woodbrooke, Europe's only Quaker Study Centre, since the mid-1990s, and through their working together to produce a booklet and audio materials that are being distributed by the Quaker group Kindlers. The booklet and its related recording grew from a workshop that Hobby led for Kindlers in London in November 2011.
While academic research about 18th-century women writers is well established, many general readers are completely unfamiliar with the range, presence and vitality of their cultural activity. Elizabeth Eger's research on 18th-century women's writing led to a free, public exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery aimed to bridge the distance between specialised and general knowledge by introducing to the general public the original bluestockings— a group of intellectual women who had significant social and literary impact upon Enlightenment Britain but were subsequently written out of history. The exhibition attracted a large audience of over 185,000 people, approximately twice the number predicted by the NPG. 40% of the visitors were first time at the NPG, and an outreach programme ensured this audience was diverse.
The activities of Nottingham Trent's Centre for Travel Writing Studies influence learned societies' projects, museum exhibitions and universities' study of travel writing and culture. Our public engagements principally take the form of museum events, library talks and presentations, and media appearances.
Our pioneering research centre creates new understandings of travel writing, within and beyond academia, and produces a fresh appreciation of the centrality of travel to British history and culture. In partnership with institutions such as Coventry Transport Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the Joseph Banks Trust, the Hakluyt Society, and Nottingham's Bromley House Library, we organise exhibitions, arrange public events, and, through the publication of important historical travel accounts preserve, conserve and present cultural heritage.
Our collaborations impact on how museums and libraries view and present their collections and on societies' publications. Our research influences university syllabi. We provide specialist knowledge to media researchers, and other inquirers. Through broadcast interviews, podcasts, magazine and newspaper articles, introductions, textbooks, companions and encyclopaedias our work affects audiences' understanding of the written representation of travel.
Research undertaken by Dr Rainbow Murray in the School of Politics and International Relations (SPIR) at QMUL has assisted governments and activists from Europe, Israel and China interested in adopting gender quotas in elections to understand their potential advantages, pitfalls and consequences. Users of her research include parliaments, intergovernmental organisations, political parties, public bodies, NGOs and the media.
Making a major contribution to English recovery research in the Unit, work associated with this case study has brought to a wider public:
1) the works of writers whose livelihoods were principally earned through manual labour or craft skills;
2) radical and neglected writing across a range of periods, genres and cultural contexts.
This has led to impact through enhancement of public understanding of literary and cultural value.
Underpinning research began in 1994; subsequently three principal routes to impact have evolved:
1) the development of open access online resources, in particular, `Labouring-Class Poets Online';
2) NTU publishing imprint, Trent Editions, which combines scholarly research with dissemination of neglected radical writing;
3) engagement with literary societies and related organizations.