Event Details

This afternoon workshop will build on our first seminar by exploring the embeddedness of ecological principles in Ruskin’s writings on art and science. Participants include Dr Pandora Syperek (independent scholar), Caroline Ikin (Manchester Metropolitan University) and others.

Ecology is not a word Ruskin used himself. Yet, as Mark Frost has recently affirmed, Ruskin’s concern with the fundamental interconnectedness of things ‘anticipates the ambitious multivalence’ of modern ecological thinking. The workshop will explore the pertinence of this observation to the study of Ruskin’s engagement with the arts and sciences, and it will consider the embeddedness of ecological principles in Ruskin’s writings on art and science. Participants include Dr Pandora Syperek (independent scholar), Caroline Ikin (Manchester Metropolitan University) and others. All are welcome to attend this event, which will conclude with a keynote talk by Dr Jeremy Melius (Tufts University)

Full programme:

1:00–1:10pm Welcome and opening remarks

1:10–2:10pm Panel 1 Chair: Thomas Hughes

Pandora Syperek (Independent scholar), ‘Becoming Mineral: Ruskin in the Natural History Museum’

Caroline Ikin (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘Ruskin’s Biophilic Impulse: “if only I could lie down in Coniston water”’

2:10–2:25pm Break – tea & coffee provided

2:25–2:55pm Open reading and discussion of Ruskin’s ‘The Law of Help’ (1860)

2:55–3:05pm Break

3:05–4:05pm Panel 2 Chair: Kelly Freeman

Rachel Dickinson (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘“Foul Fog”: Ruskin and Pollution’

Stephen Kite (Cardiff), ‘“Think first of the walls”: Surfaces of Generosity, Morris, Webb and the Arts and Crafts Domestic Interior’

4:05–4:15pm Break

4:15–5:00pm Keynote: Jeremy Melius (Tufts), ‘Ruskin and the Art of Relations’

5:00–5:15pm Break – tea & coffee provided

5:15–5:45pm Q&A and discussion

5:45–6:00pm Closing remarks