Bluemel Lectures at Historic Lit & Phil Library

Kristin Bluemel, Ph.D., associate dean of the McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences, professor of English, and Wayne D. McMurray Endowed Chair in the Humanities, delivered an invited lecture at the Lit & Phil Library in Newcastle, England, on July 7. The presentation highlighted how women wood engravers helped reshape the visual and literary landscape of modern Britain.

Her talk, "Enchanted Wood: Engraving a Place for Women Artists in Rural England," was based on her recent book published on the same topic. Bluemel spoke to a packed room, with audience members ranging from wood engraving collectors and enthusiasts to artists, librarians, and academics. Newcastle was the home of Thomas Bewick, an Enlightenment-era engraver and naturalist who inspired the art and book illustration of the twentieth-century women artists Bluemel features in her book.

The Lit & Phil was founded in Newcastle in 1793, around the same time that Bewick was active. It is an independent library free to all visitors who enter its historic building in the city center of Newcastle.

Following the lecture, The Bewick Society hosted an outing in Bluemel's honor to the National Trust's Cherryburn, Bewick's birthplace museum in the rural Tyne Valley.