Lynda Nead on ‘The Secret of England’s Greatness’
In June 2013 Lynda Nead was a plenary speaker at the first combined conference of Victorian Studies Associations from Britain, North America and Australia.
In June 2013, Professor Lynda Nead was a plenary speaker at the first combined conference of Victorian Studies Associations from Britain, North America and Australia.
The conference, organised on the theme of ‘The Local and the Global’, was held in Venice. The title of Lynda’s lecture was ‘The Secret of England’s Greatness’, focussing on two paintings, the first T. J. Barker’s The Secret of England’s Greatness (Queen Victoria Presenting a Bible in the Audience Chamber at Windsor), 1863 (National Portrait Gallery, London) and the second by William Mulready called The Toyseller, 1857-62 (National Gallery of Ireland). Both pictures are scenes of colonial fantasy; of forms of contact between the heart of empire and the colonial diaspora. Through a close reading of the images, the lecture examined the ideas about racial and national identity and relationships between the local and the global that they convey.
Lynda teaches on the BA History of Art and MA History of Art programmes as well as supervising PhD students.