Celebrating 250 Years of Circus: Special Edition of Early Popular Visual Culture, 16(3)
- Submitting institution
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The University of Sheffield
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 7364
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- ISBN
- 0000000000
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
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- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Toulmin conceived and directed the commemorative project from which this special issue arose, marking 250 years from when modern circus was created. ‘Circus! The Show of Shows’ (2018) comprised three interlinked exhibitions she created in collaboration with Sheffield, Newcastle upon Tyne and Norfolk Museum Services, and in partnership with the V&A and National Fairground and Circus Archive.
The issue reveals the global history of the circus genre, tracing its innovations and reinventions, and examining how this has shaped and interfaced with other forms of popular entertainment over three centuries. Equally importantly, new research establishes the importance of gender and race in circus studies, narratives that have typically been overlooked.
Toulmin chose to expand the issue’s archive section to give prominence to three rare primary sources. She selected media formats mirroring those used by the circus to promote itself (advertising pamphlets, photographs and magic lantern slides) and liaised with several archives in order to source this material, among them the Ringling Circus Museum (Florida), the Arthur Fenwick Collection (Tyne and Wear) and the private collection of Dick Moore.
Beyond the work of planning and editing this issue, Toulmin contributes three authored sections: an editorial (231-234); original article, ‘Black Circus Performers in Victorian Britain’ (267-289); and one of three archive pieces, ‘“My wife to conclude performs the rest” – Patty Astley, the first lady of circus’ (290-300). The article uses archival sources to examine societal changes and contexts on both sides of the Atlantic that shaped conditions for African-American and Black British performers. In her archive essay, Toulmin presents the 1773 pamphlet ‘A Short Description of the Various Feats of Activity Exhibited at Astley’s British Riding School’, a rare period document that evidences the significance of Patty Astley, performer and joint proprietor of Astley’s Circus, a figure previously marginalised in circus histories.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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