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Research This page lists scholarly articles and essays by Ralph Harrington, including some that are available here online, along with other pieces of writing of various kinds. From this page you can also access details of current and completed research projects, and a selection of course outlines, bibliographies, teaching materials and other academic resources. published articles | online articles | research projects | conferences & public lectures | media & broadcasting | miscellaneous Published articles The text of these articles is only available in the original publications, not on this site. However, if you need to see one of these articles and are having trouble locating it, please get in touch and I may be able to provide you with the text by e-mail (serious scholarly enquiries only please). Articles published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals are marked with an asterisk.* ‘The neuroses of the railway’, History Today, vol. 44, no. 7 (July 1994), pp. 15-21. ‘The “Railway Spine” diagnosis and Victorian responses to PTSD’, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, vol. 40, no. 1 (January 1996), pp. 11-14.* ‘People on the move in the ancient world’, The Independent, 22 December 1998, p. 7. ‘In praise of urban congestion’, The Independent, 4 January 1999, p. 4. ‘The railway journey and the neuroses of modernity’, in Richard Wrigley & George Revill (eds.), Pathologies of Travel (Amsterdam: Rodopi,1999), pp. 229-260. ISBN: 9042006080 hbk / 904200598X pbk. ‘The railway accident: trains, trauma and technological crisis in nineteenth century Britain’, in Mark S. Micale & Paul Lerner (eds.), Traumatic Pasts: History and Trauma in the Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 31-57. ISBN: 0521583659. ‘“The Mighty Hood”: navy, empire, war at sea and the British national imagination, 1920-60’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 38, no. 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 171-185.* ‘Civic pride, urban identity and public transport in Britain’, in Winstan Bond & Colin Divall (eds.), Suburbanising the Masses: Public Transport and Urban Development in Historical Perspective (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 251-267. ISBN: 0754607755. ‘On the tracks of trauma: railway spine reconsidered’, Social History of Medicine, vol. 16, no. 2 (August 2003), pp. 209-223.* ‘Railway safety and railway slaughter: railway accidents, government and public in Victorian Britain’, Journal of Victorian Culture, vol. 8, no. 2 (Autumn 2003), pp. 187-207.* ‘Beyond the bathing belle: images of women in inter-war railway publicity’, Journal of Transport History, vol. 25, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 22-45.* ‘Storyteller haunted by a Christian conscience’, The Tablet, 30 December 2006, pp. 15-16. ‘Steam sci-fi: how the Victorians invented the future’, All The Rage, October 2007, pp. 23-26. Click here to read the article (PDF) ‘The Mary Celeste: fact, fiction and mystery’, All The Rage, November 2007, pp. 27-29. Click here to read the article (PDF) ‘Was Nadia Abu El Haj treated fairly?’, History News Network, 12 November 2007. Also available on this site, with expanded references, here. ‘Children’s presents through time’, All The Rage, December 2007, pp. 4-6. Click here to read the article (PDF) ‘China’s future is not Europe’s past’, History News Network, 7 December 2007 (also here). ‘The bulldozer: one of the overlooked wonders of technology’, History News Network, 31 December 2007. ‘Forbidden knowledge in the internet age’, All The Rage, January 2008, pp. 3-4. Click here to read the article (PDF) ‘Time for humanity’, All The Rage, February 2008, pp. 4-5. Click here to read the article (PDF) ‘Desk space’, All The Rage, March 2008, pp. 8-9. Click here to read the article (PDF) Online articles This is a listing of scholarly articles available in full on this site. To read any article listed here, just click on ‘Read>>’. Please note that the majority of these articles use footnotes, indicated by numbers in square brackets [] in the text. Click on the number to view the footnote, then use your browser’s ‘back’ button to return to your place in the document you are reading. ‘Transport: then, now and tomorrow’ (1998) Read>> [external link] ‘Biological metaphor and railway systems: aspects of nineteenth-century perceptions of the railway’ (1999) Read>> ‘Perceptions of the locomotive driver: image and identity on British railways, c.1840-c.1950’ (1999) Read>> [external link] ‘Visions of Metropolis: the great city as a theme in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis’ (2000) Read>> ‘Automobile City? Transport and the making of twentieth-century Los Angeles’ (2003) Read>> ‘Model railways and cultural microcosms: towards a social and cultural history of railway modelling in inter-war Britain’ (2001 and ongoing) Read>> ‘The cultural geographies of road and rail in inter-war England’ (2002) Read>> ‘Cold War sub-texts: the submarine and the popular imagination in postwar Britain’ (2003) Read>> ‘Trains, technology and time-travellers: how the Victorians re-invented time’ (2003) Read>> ‘Dresden: the making of a baroque city’ (2005) Read>> [includes illustrations] ‘The distinctiveness of Bohemian baroque: a study in the architecture of Central Europe, c.1680-c.1720’ (2005) Read>> [includes illustrations] ‘Neoclassicism in Britain: the Adam brothers and “Athenian” Stuart’ (2005) Read>> ‘El Valle de los Caídos: a study in remembrance and revenge’ (2005) Read>> [includes illustrations] ‘The sage of the train: Ruskin and the Victorian railway’ (2005) Read>> ‘Ghosts, trains and trams: the technologies of transport in the ghost stories of M. R. James’ (2005) Read>> Five studies in political philosophy: --- ‘Aristotle and citizenship’ (2005) Read>> --- ‘Hobbes and liberty’ (2005) Read>> --- ‘Rousseau and inequality’ (2005) Read>> --- ‘Burke and revolution’ (2005) Read>> --- ‘Mill and liberty’ (2005) Read>> ‘Writing the Cold War: a survey of Cold War historiography’ (2005) Read>> ‘Beauty and identity: the national beauty contest in twentieth-century Australia and America’ (2006) Read>> ‘The shadow of Stonehenge: paganism, fate and redemption in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (2006) Read>> ‘M. R. James: supernaturalism, Christianity and moral accountability’ (2006) Read>> ‘“So jarred were all my nerves”: supernatural shock and traumatic terror in the ghost stories of M. R. James’ (2006) Read>> ‘Representing the Victorian railway: the aesthetics of ambivalence’ (2006) Read>> ‘Behold now Behemoth: the bulldozer as tool and weapon’ (2007) Read>> ‘Bulldozer archaeology? Excavation, earthmoving and archaeological practice in Israel’ (2007) Read>> ‘Taste, sense and vanity: Alexander Pope’s “Epistle to Burlington”’ (2007) Read>> ‘“The old enemy”: Anthony Burgess and Islam’ (2008) Read>> Research projects These are larger-scale historical research projects that have been completed or are ongoing. William Shenstone and the Leasowes: the English Landscape Garden in Transition, c.1740-1763 (1994, revised 2006) Read>> An index page, including some relevant links, for my ongoing research into M. R. James Read>> An index page for my ongoing research into themes in the history of the Victorian railway Read>> An index page for my ongoing work in eighteenth-century studies Read>> Other projects will be added in due course. Conferences & public lectures This section contains a select list of academic conferences to which I have contributed and public lectures I have given. Links to the texts of papers and lectures are provided, where available. Conference papers marked * were later published and are listed under 'published articles' above. November 1998: ‘Representing the Victorian railway: the aesthetics of ambivalence’, The Victorians and the Railway conference, Trinity & All Saints College, Leeds Read>> November 1998: ‘Transport then, now and tomorrow’,* Worshipful Company of Carmen Lecture, Royal Society of Arts, London Read>> September 1999: ‘Perceptions of the locomotive driver: image and identity on British Railways c.1840-c.1950’, Occupational Identity and Railway Work conference, National Railway Museum, York Read>> September 1999: ‘Biological metaphor and railway systems: aspects of nineteenth-century perceptions of the railway’, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine seminar, Wellcome Institute, London Read>> February 2001: ‘Construction and cataclysm: the railway in C19th London’, Il Congreso de Historia Ferroviaria (Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles), Aranjuez, Spain July 2001: ‘The image of the Hood’,* Anglo-American Conference of Historians, Institute of Historical Research, London November 2001: ‘Accident and aftermath: railway spine revisited’,* Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine seminar, Wellcome Unit, University of Oxford April 2002: ‘Conduits of crime: middle-class anxieties and the railway in Victorian England’, Off the Rails conference, National Railway Museum, York July 2002: ‘Beyond the bathing belle: images of women in inter-war travel publicity’,* Association of Business Historians annual conference, University of Reading June 2003: ‘Automobile city? Transport and the shaping of twentieth-century Los Angeles’, The World Runs on Wheels: the History of Urban Transport seminar, London's Transport Museum, London Read>> September 2003: ‘Cold War sub-texts: the submarine and the popular imagination, Britain 1945-90’, Britain and the Culture of the Cold War conference, Institute of Contemporary British History, University of London Read>> October 2006: ‘“So jarred were all my nerves”: supernatural shock and traumatic terror in the ghost stories of M. R. James’, Mind, Brain and Trauma seminar series, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford Read>> Media & broadcasting I’ve been interviewed about my research and related issues, made contributions behind the scenes or otherwise taken part in the following television and radio programmes. Building Big: Tunnels (US TV, 2000: PBS/WGBH) - interviewed on-screen The Railway Age (UK TV, 2000: Yorkshire Television) - interviewed on-screen A Revolution in Five Acts (UK radio, 2001: BBC Radio 4) - extensive recorded interviews and commentary Excess Baggage (UK radio, 2001: BBC Radio 4) - participated in on-air discussion Why Did We Do That? Back to Beeching (UK radio, 2002: BBC Radio 4) - extensive recorded interviews and commentary War At Sea (UK TV, 2003: BBC Television) - interviewed off-screen, research contribution I have also been interviewed, mainly in connection with railway and transport issues and railway heritage events for various news programmes on Yorkshire Television and Tyne-Tees Television, BBC local and national radio, BBC News 24, Sky News, Channel Four and CBC (Canada). Miscellaneous writing This section contains miscellaneous bits and pieces. Just click on ‘Read>>’. ‘Railway heraldry’ (2003) – a web exhibition for the Institute of Railway Studies, University of York Read>> [external link] ‘York and the railways’ (2002) – a lecture given as part of York Learning Festival Read>> © greycat.org