Dr Pam Lock, a lecturer in the Department of English, will be co-investigator on a project entitled: ‘Between the drunken “mother of destruction” and the sober “angel of the house”’: Hidden representations of women’s drinking in Polish and British public discourses in the second half of the 19th century’.

The project examines and compares female drinking and drunkenness in nineteenth-century British and Polish Cultures. Drs Dias-Lewandowska and Lock will explore the policing of women’s bodies and minds in the nineteenth century in articles and fiction published in the new periodicals of that period; more specifically, it will build on current research into the ways in which women's choices regarding alcohol consumption were constrained, culturally and legally, by a perceived gender-specific responsibility to the family and community. They will not only explore the way in which women's drinking culture was and is reduced to two extremes -- the fallen drunken woman, ‘mother of destruction’ and the sober mother, ‘the angel of the house’ -- but also seek the middle ground between these two extremes, focusing on the recreational female drinkers and the rebels. You can read more about the project here and follow it on Twitter here.

The project builds upon Dr Lock's dual research interests in Victorian literature and on the history of drink and drinking.