Profile

Biography

BA (York St John), MA, PhD (York)

Research Interests

Carolyn began her research on the Jewish, homosexual, Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic artist Simeon Solomon in 2003, when she wrote her Master’s dissertation at York on Solomon’s 1873 arrest. Her AHRC funded doctoral thesis was titled He hath Mingled with the Ungodly: the Life of Simeon Solomon after 1873 with a Survey of the Extant Work. In two volumes the thesis explored Solomon's life after his arrest for attempted sodomy in 1873, making a new critical evaluation of the artist's life and work, using newly discovered visual and textual archival sources. She currently edits the online Simeon Solomon Research Archive at www.simeonsolomon.com with American colleague Roberto C. Ferrari, and is in the process of turning her doctoral thesis into a biography of Solomon’s life.

Carolyn’s other research interests include nineteenth-century British painting, particularly the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements; nineteenth-century British and international exhibitions; Victorian photography and the work of Frederick Hollyer, and more generally the history of homosexuality; social history of Victorian London, particularly workhouses, asylums, social philanthropy and 'slumming'.

Publications

Selected publications

­Articles

 “The Simeon Solomon Research Archive Online.” Pre-Raphaelite Society Newsletter of the United States (January, 2012).

"Simeon Solomon's Shame-Free Art." Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide 18, no. 5 (2011): 18-20, with Roberto C. Ferrari.

Forthcoming and Recent Papers

"Mingling with the Ungodly": Simeon Solomon in queer London
23rd March 2013, Queer London Conference, University of Westminster (forthcoming).

'An Appalling Bohemianism”: Simeon Solomon, a Pre-Raphaelite in the Slums of St Giles' 16th November 2013, The Pre-Raphaelite Society Lecture, The Undercroft, Birmingham Cathedral. (forthcoming)

Sins of the City’: Sodomy, the Law and Simeon Solomon in Nineteenth-Century London’15-17 June, 2012. Taking Liberties: Sex, Pleasure, Coercion (1748-1928), Conference at Newcastle University.

‘The Arrest of Simeon Solomon in London, 1873’
October 2010: British Queer History Conference, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

‘Perverse Inclinations’: Simeon Solomon, Homosexuality and Tramps'.
2007.  British Art Research Day, University of York.

'Buggery, Burglary and Beggary: Simeon Solomon and Victorian London'.
May 2007. Simeon Solomon Symposium, University of York.

'The Abominable Crime of Buggery: The Queen vs. Simeon Solomon and George Roberts, 1873'.
2007. Guest Lecturer, LGBT Queer History Month, University of York.