George Berger's career went from:
early 1830s—reformism following William Cobbett
post-Reform Act (1832)—political reform and mechanic self-improvement
1830s and "hungry forties"—mechanic self-fashioning + reform
1850s-60s—material & cultural interests of lower-middle classes & mechanics
#ESPRit2026

Thanks to the early 19th century publishing revolution, a print object profitable for sixpence in 1800 became profitable for one penny by the late 1820s.

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💥 Blast from the past! 💥 Gary Kelly is closing the panel by talking about George Berger (1796-1868)!

My bibliographic database of penny weekly numbers *Price One Penny* contains 6 works that he published.

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Helen Craske's wider project is called "Saucy French Magazines: Gossip, Sex, and Art in Belle Époque Paris (1880-1914)"

#ESPRit2026

Helen Craske didn't only trace texts and images from the almanacs and albums back to the weekly, but also tracked changes: rewritings in the case of texts as well as recontextualisations, decontextualisations, and a bit of both in the images.

#ESPRit2026

Helen Craske used sources from:

- @gallicabnf.bsky.social
- @labnf.bsky.social Richelieu
- her own collection

Always interesting to hear about researchers collecting the materials they're working on!

#ESPRit2026

And panel 5.4 (whoever named this panel did not care enough about my Bluesky character limit): Japan in the Global Information Networks of the Age of Imperialism: Treaty Port Press,
Illustrated War Magazines, and Commercial Information Periodicals, 1850-1920s #ESPRit2026

Helen Craske studied the recirculation of texts and images of the saucy Parisian magazine *Fin de siècle* (1890-1910) and its spin-offs, i.e. almanachs and albums.

She found that the albums are almost entirely constituted of recycled material whereas the almanachs are half original.

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After lunch 5.1. C.19 Popular Print Culture: featuring Stephen Donovan & Matthew Rubery on rethinking the circulation of ideas in the Victorian press, Helen Craske on sidelines and spinoffs in saucy French magazines (1880-1914) & Gary Kelly on penny periodicals & C.19 echanics’ worlding #ESPRit2026

The first installment was entitled ‘A Night on Nelson’s Pillar’ and published on 28 January 1888.

If I caught that correctly, there were two other installments in 1888 and it was restarted a year later, but it was not profitable it seems.

#ESPRit2026

Stephen Donovan & Matthew Rubery are developing the concept of "memesis"

Didn't catch their definition, but the abstract says: 'the most effective way to capture the public’s attention [is to] conver[t] complex cultural phenomena into compressed portable formats known today as “memes”'

#ESPRit2026

Starting the afternoon of #ESPRit2026 Day 2 is Stephen Donovan presenting his work with Matthew Rubery (on this year's short list for RSVP's Colby Prize) on undercover journalism.

He discusses the reporting series ‘In Queer Places’ which ran in the Dublin penny newspaper *Sport* in 1888.

4.3. Propaganda and Resistance: Stefano Locati, on Foreign Editions of Tempo: Italian Visual Narratives &
Propaganda, Ine Van Linthout on the reshaping of ‘Europe’ in Europäische Literatur during WWII, & Marysa Demoor, The Clandestine Press in WW II #ESPRit2026

Kicking us off this morning with our Keynote: Barbara Mittler (Heidelberg University) — “Changing Worlds — Rethinking Histories and Herstories in Global China: A View from
the Entertainment Press, 2000s-2010s”
Chair: Birgit Van Puymbroeck (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) #ESPRit2026

I must say I've been having a hard time keeping up due to the succession of tables of contents at the beginning, so I'm playing around in the CATS digitized special collections.

Great to see both sides of vinyl records as well as their sleeves having been digitized! See ALT text for 🔗

#ESPRit2026

Barbara Mittler praised the librarian at the CATS Library, part of her university in Heidelberg, for acquiring women's magazines like the Chinese editions of *ELLE* or *Vogue*.

The images in her slides come from its digitizations 👇

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This year at #ESPRit2026 we'll reach into the 21st century and move through a larger swath of periodicals, from newspapers to women's magazines...

For this keynote, Barbara Mittler concentrates on the visual representations of intimacy, comparing the 1930s w/ the late 20th & early 21st centuries...

Day 2 starts with Barbara Mittler and a look back to her keynote at the keynote of ESPRit's very first conference in 2011. It dealt with the satirical press of the 19th century in China and Europe.

Two years later, a collection of essays she co-edited appeared.

#ESPRit2026

Three fascinating papers on image as the locus of a cultural conversation across time and space.
Picture: Veronica Bassini (University of Genova) — “Beyond the Page: Non-Print Archives and the World of Illustrated Periodicals through the Pipein Gamba Fund”
#ESPRit2026 #PeriodicalsandtheWorld

Thoroughly enjoyed this panel about transcultural circulations across Europe, from Grand Tour travellers to the rebuilding of identities post-Risorgimento.
#ESPRit2026 #PeriodicalsandtheWorld