Octave Uzanne’s L’Éventail: a literary mythology of the fan

In the last half of the nineteenth century, the folding fan was phenomenally popular in France. The accessory was a ubiquitous component of women’s dress, yet it also attracted the attention of some prominent collectors and Orientalists as well as acquiring an importance in the art and literature of the period. In many plastic works and literary texts devoted to it, the fan retains a link with femininity, and particularly with feminine sexuality, even as its identity as an art object is emphasized. Octave Uzanne’s L’Éventail (1882), a self-professed literary history of the fan, exemplifies this dualistic treatment as it presents the fan both as a titillating intimate companion of women and as a literary and (although to a lesser extent) art historical subject. This article focuses on Uzanne’s treatment of the fan’s early history in the Far and Middle East. By comparing his text with other contemporary histories of the fan, it demonstrates that the “history” of the accessory may be more accurately described as a mythology.

Palgrave Literary Dictionaries (co-edited with Brian G. Caraher)

Martin Garrett, The Palgrave Literary Dictionary of Shelley (Palgrave, 2013).

Palgrave Literary Dictionaries

Martin Garrett, The Palgrave Literary Dictionary of Byron (Palgrave, 2010)

The Ulster Covenant and the Pulse of Protestant Ulster

The signing of the Ulster Covenant on 28 September 1912 by almost 450,000 men and women was a powerful act of defiance on the part of Unionists in the context of what they perceived as the threat to their way of life represented by the Liberal Government's policy of Irish Home Rule. This article attempts to look beyond the well-studied leadership figures of Carson and Craig in order to fashion insights into the way Ulster Protestant society was mobilised around the Covenant and opposition to Home Rule. It draws attention to hitherto over-shadowed personalities who can be said to have exerted crucial local influence. It also contends that although pan-Protestant denominational unity provided the basis for the success of the Covenant, the Presbyterian community was particularly cohesive and purposeful in the campaign. The article further argues that the risk-taking defiance that came more easily to the Presbyterians, on account of a troubled history, largely evaporated in the new political circumstances of Northern Ireland when it became a separate devolved political entity within the UK from 1921.

Ulster Says Maybe: The Restructuring of Evangelical Politics in Northern Ireland

The recent electoral triumphs of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have stimulated debate about the role of fundamentalist or ‘traditional evangelical’ Protestantism within the party and in Northern Irish politics. This paper argues that a significant restructuring of evangelical politics is taking place, one that is interest group‐centred rather than DUP‐centred. This process has been facilitated by changes in the structure of civil society. Traditional evangelical interest groups are ‘reframing’ their political projects in surprising new ways: abandoning Calvinist conceptions of church and state, using discourses of marginalisation and discrimination, and focusing on ‘moral’ issues. These subtle shifts in rhetoric constitute an acceptance of the post‐Belfast Agreement order. Rather than the tired, ‘Ulster Says No’ politics of the past, evangelicals are speaking out with a pragmatic ‘maybe’. This move parallels and reinforces the DUP’s ideological shifts, and provides an extra‐party platform for evangelicals to impact politics.