Prestigious Fellowship for Dr Sydney Shep
Sydney’s research project, Fluid Geographies and Global Mobilities: Recovering Southampton’s Translocal Book Trade Networks 1840–1914, was chosen from more than 750 applicants.
“As a lively port city, Southampton was both a gateway for nineteenth-century emigrants and a bubbling cauldron of industrial innovation. Printers, bookbinders, engravers, papermakers, publishers and booksellers were all implicated in fascinating global and local knowledge exchange networks that shaped and reshaped their professional and personal lives,” says Sydney.
Using local archives and digitised newspapers, she will be mapping Southampton’s book trade networks to recover the little-known stories of transient book workers and the places they inhabited.
Sydney says her research builds on an earlier collaboration with Professor Mary Hammond from the University of Southampton. She plans to explore new approaches to digital humanities working in conjunction with colleagues in history, English, computer science and the new Digital Scholarship Lab at the Southampton University Library.
“New initiatives like the British Academy Visiting Fellowship supported by the Rutherford Fund catalyse interdisciplinary and inter-institutional research. Deepening this existing partnership wth Southampton bodes well for future, dynamic collaborations with scholars and students around the world.”
Sydney will use her research to create an interactive digital portal, content for a heritage tour smartphone app and an exhibition proposal.