Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BBEB (Barbara Bodichon's Epistolary Bildung)
Période du rapport: 2017-09-01 au 2019-08-31
As an interdisciplinary project, at Roehampton I have also discussed my research with colleagues at the School of Education. In this sense, I have set up, in collaboration with Dr. Amy Palmer, a reading group – History of Education Reading Group – that has gathered researchers interested in sharing knowledge on the history of (women’s) education.
In order to improve my German and hence engage with Bildungstheorie, at the Goethe Institut London I have taken courses throughout my Fellowship. In addition, I have done a 3-month secondment at the Department of Education, Frankfurt University (23 September - 21 December 2018). This secondment has permitted, on the one hand, to improve my German (I have taken intensive courses at the Goethe Institute Frankfurt) and discuss my on-going research with Bildung specialist Professor Christiane Thompson.
As an MC Fellow I have written my first book-length publication: Barbara Bodichon’s Epistolary Education: Unfolding Feminism. I signed a contract with Palgrave Macmillan and I am in the latest stages of editing my manuscript. It will be out in 2020, before the end of REF 2021. It is the only study of the Bildung-like dimensions of letters undertaken so far and it will be of interest to historians and philosophers of education, to specialists in Narrative Inquiry/Epistolary Research and to scholars in the field of Women’s/Gender History. For its simultaneously a history and methodology book.
Having taken courses up to the B2 level in German, I am also preparing for the C1 exam, which I expect to take early 2020.
Throughout my MC Fellowship I have produced the following outcomes:
- Book chapter: ‘Des/unions de gènere i raça en la història del moviment sufragista als Estats Units’, in Sufragisme i sufragistes: reivindicant la ciutadania política de les dones, edited by Susanna Tavera and Josep Lluís Martín Berbois (2019).
- Edited book/translation: Barbara Bodichon: Oeuvres, Classiques Garnier (Paris).
- Encyclopaedia entry: ‘Barbara Bodichon’, The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing, edited by Lesa Scholl.
- Book review: Biographical Misrepresentations of British Women Writers, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, edited by Brenda Ayres in Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly.
- The History of Education Society UK invited me to take over the co-editorship of its History of Education Researcher.
- The International Auto/Biography Association (European Chapter) invited me to join the editorial board of its European Journal of Life Writing.
As part of my dissemination scheme, I have run a WordPress blog, Epistolarity (https://meritxellsimonmartin.wordpress.com/).
To academic audiences I have presented my work-in-progress at conferences and in public institutions in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Argentina and Brazil.
The success of this workshop has caught the attention of scholars from Argentina and Brazil, who have invited me to present it both to academic and general audiences:
- Museo Estevez, Rosario (Argentina):
- Department of Education, Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (Spring 2020)
During my MC Fellowship I have been invited to participate in the following publications:
- Simon-Martin, Meritxell, ‘La educacion epistolary de Barbara Bodichon: la producción dialogica y cooperativa del conocimiento’, in special issue ‘História da educação: sensibilidade, arquivos pessoais e cultura escrita"", edited by Luciane Sgarbi S. Grazziotin, Revista De história da educação (Brazil) – forthcoming 2020.
- Simon-Martin, Meritxell, ‘Barbara Bodichon’s Archive: Silences that Speak’, in special issue ‘Who ‘speaks’ and for whom? approaches to (and along) working with autobiographical materials in history of education research’, edited by Karen Lillie, Lisbeth and Lilli, Paedagogica Historica (currently under evaluation).
- Simon-Martin, Meritxell, ‘The American Travel Diary of Barbara Bodichon (1827-1891): self-development at the interface of emotions and embodiment’, in special issue ‘Dear Diary, Dear Body: Personal Reports on Health and Illness in a Transnational Context’, edited by Ernestine Hoegen, Leonieke Vermeer and Babs Boter, Biography: A Quarterly Journal (currently under evaluation)
- Simon-Martin, Meritxell, and Jové, Glòria, Educación Epistolar: la producción dialogica y colaborativa de la producción del conocimiento, Revista Interuniversitaria Historia de la Educación (to be submitted in 2020)."