WHEN LECTURES WERE ENTERTAINMENT
Rodrick explores 19th-century lecture culture in new book
In graduate school while working on her first book, Dr. Anne Rodrick, Reeves Family Professor of History, kept coming across mentions of public lectures and lecture societies in 19th-century England.
“I thought, ‘Surely somebody has written something about this,’ and nobody had,” says Rodrick, who teaches European history and directs Wofford’s humanities program.
She decided to write her own book.
“Lecturing the Victorians,” published last August by Bloomsbury Academic, is the culmination of 10 years of research and Rodrick’s analysis of more than 8,000 lectures to give insight into what the average Victorian thought, heard and debated.
“Everybody went to lectures, but we as 19th-century scholars knew very little about how they worked,” Rodrick says.
Like TED Talks today, popular lectures from 1850 to 1914 were designed to inform and entertain the masses on topics ranging from science to arts to social issues.
“The lectures themselves covered just an enormous wealth of materials. People talked about their travels. They talked about science and did science experiments on stage; they dressed up and recited poetry. Anything you can think of, if it existed in the public mind, I guarantee there was a lecture on it,” says Rodrick.
The lecture circuit attracted many well-known figures, including Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde. “It also attracted really tiny names you’ve never heard of and will never hear of again,” Rodrick says. “It was very democratic in terms of who participated.”
“Lecturing the Victorians” is Rodrick’s third book (available from Amazon). It draws heavily from two primary sources: a monthly scientific newsletter by the Journal of the Society of the Arts and an extremely rare and obscure publication called the Institute and Lecturers’ Gazette, which contained a wealth of information on individual lecturers, what they talked about and how they advertised.
“This is a foundation that I hope a lot of people are going to build on, because I certainly could not cover everything in this one book,” says Rodrick.
Rodrick is currently on sabbatical to work on a fourvolume collection of Victorian lectures forthcoming from Routledge Press. She hopes to spend next summer building a public database to allow other scholars to access her extensive research.
DR. TRACY REVELS
Laura and Winston Hoy Professor of Humanities
Revels recorded and released the audiobook version of her book, “Upon the Face of the Waters: A Brief History of Wakulla Springs.” The audiobook was recorded at Wofford.
DR. JOHNATHAN DAVIS
Assistant professor of biology
Davis published the paper “A Course-Based Research Experience that Explores Water Quality, Land Use, & Biodiversity Within a Four-Dimensional Ecology Education Framework” in The American Biology Teacher. It features methods used in the BIO 382 ecology course at Wofford.
“The idea for this paper was inspired by a workshop that I attended several years ago through Adopt-a-Stream. The research project that is described allows students to conduct a novel, hands-on investigation of their own local watershed while applying concepts of ecology,” Davis says.
DR. JESSICA TOMKINS
Assistant professor of history
Tomkins co-edited and published “Understanding Power in Ancient Egypt and the Near East: Volume I” (Leiden: Brill). She also authored the chapter “Theorizing Power in Ancient Egypt” in the book. “This exciting collection of articles by eminent scholars of Egyptology and ancient Near Eastern studies from around the world explores new methods and theoretical lenses to study power in the ancient world,” says Tomkins. “These articles were born out of conference papers submitted to the threeyear conference session at American Society of Overseas Research, which I co-organized with my colleague Dr. Shane Thompson, who co-edited this volume with me.”
DR. KIMBERLY ROSTAN
Professor of English
Rostan wrote the chapter “Life Writing and Citational Justice in the Context of World Literature” in the anthology “Life Writing as World Literature” (Bloomsbury Press) in May. The book brings together experts who map regional and local autobiographical traditions from six continents.
DR. STACEY HETTES
Professor of biology
Hettes published “Dispatches from the Couch: A Neuroscientist and Her Therapist Conspire to Reboot Her Brain” (Apprentice House Press) in May. This debut memoir reveals the laborious and complex, but promising, work of revisiting the past to extract its remnants of shame and loneliness from the present.
“I never anticipated writing a book for a wide audience, let alone one like this. I am so glad I did,” says Hettes. “We professors deserve to share what we’ve learned — even when those lessons enter more personal realms.”
JESSICA SCOTT-FELDER
Associate professor of studio art
The Southside Cultural Monument, which was designed by Scott-Felder, was unveiled on June 14 at the corner of Hudson Barksdale Boulevard and South Converse Street in downtown Spartanburg. It is nearly 150 feet wide and composed of photographs, text and illustrations imposed on plastic-like panels.
DR. DANE HILTON
Assistant professor of psychology
In December 2024, Hilton published an article with former Wofford student-athletes Caitlin Beacom ’23, Dahlia Cutler ’23 and Alec McAlister ’24 titled “A Pilot Feasibility Study Comparing Mindfulness and Imagery Interventions on Sport Anxiety in Division 1 Volleyball Players” in the Journal of Sport Behavior.
DR. PHILLIP STONE ’94
Archivist, lecturer in government and humanities
Stone published the book “From the Vault: Stories You Probably Never Knew About South Carolina Methodism” (Advocate Press) in November 2024. In addition to serving as the Wofford archivist, he is the archivist for the South Carolina United Methodist Church. “Part of what I do for Wofford and for the Methodist Conference is share history, and this book was my attempt to share the stories of our connection more widely. Wofford people are very much a part of South Carolina Methodist history,” Stone says.