Dr Victoria Mills
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Prior to joining Birkbeck I held a Research Fellowship at Darwin College, Cambridge and a Teaching Fellowship in Nineteenth-Century Literature at King’s College, London. My first career was in the museum sector including roles at the Victoria and Albert Museum and The Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum).
I have research interests in the intersections between literature, visual and material cultures, museums and collecting, the history of the book and in gender and sexuality. I have published on the relationship between collecting and gender in the work of a range of nineteenth-century writers including George Eliot, Oscar Wilde and Henry James. I co-edited (with Tatiana Kontou) the six-volume series, Victorian Material Culture, for Routledge (2022) and Victorian Arts (with Kate Nichols). My short film. The Man Who Painted His House, exploring the work of Victorian 'art-workman' David Parr was released in 2025.
I am currently Subject Lead in English, Co-Director of the Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies and Programme Director for the MA in Victorian Studies.
Highlights
The Man Who Painted His House My short film made in collaboration with the Derek Jarman Lab.
Victorian Arts co-edited with Kate Nichols (Routledge 2022)
The Victorian Art-Workman - British Academic Small Grant (2024-2027)
'Victorian Beauty', special issue of 19:Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (with Heather Tilley) 2023.
Victorian Material Culture a six volume series co-edited with Tatiana Kontou (Routledge in 2022)
Web profiles
Administrative responsibilities
- Programme Director MA Victorian Studies
- Subject Lead in English
Professional memberships
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British Association for Victorian Studies (Committee Member)
North American Victorian Studies Association
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
ORCID
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Research
Research
Research interests
- Literature, visual and material cultures
- The history of the book
- Gender and sexuality, especially Victorian masculinities
- Nineteenth-Century classical reception
- The Arts and Crafts Movement
Research overview
I am currently working in three broad areas:
Literature, visual and material culture
I co-edited, (with Tatiana Kontou) the six-volume series Victorian Material Culture for Routledge (2022) and Victorian Arts (with Kate Nichols).
I co-curated Victorian Sentimentality with Alison Smith and Nicola Bown at Tate Britain in 2011. In 2015 I was the Researcher for the 'Fallen Woman' exhibition held at the Foundling Museum. I am currently researching the figure of the Victorian art-workman and have received a British Academy Small Research Grant to support this work (2024-7). My short film on this topic, The Man Who Painted His House, was released in 2025.
I have published on Vernon Lee's Greek travel writing and the imagination of ruin in the British School at Athens volume The Victorians and Modern Greece (2024).
The history of the book
I have published on the practice of extra-illustrating Victorian novels set in Italy and am continuing to develop research in this area. I co-edited the Word and Image special issue, 'Mediating the Materiality of the Past, 1700-1930' and I have recently co-developed the Birkbeck- Passau network in the history of the book, which has met annually since 2023. I am currently working on two book projects linked to this project: Textual Ecologies: Media, Materials, Environments and Codex (In)Disciplines: Altered Books and Knowledge Formations, 1700-1900
Gender and Sexuality
I am interested in literary figurations of the relationship between gender and material culture. I am completing a monograph Collecting, Masculinity and the Victorian Imagination, which focuses on the literary depiction of male collectors and the significance of collecting as theme and method in late-Victorian writing. I have also published on the figure of the female collector and on the imagination of museums by Victorian women writers. My essay on the gender politics of Victorian book illustration can be read here
Research Centres and Institutes
- Steering Committee, Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies
- Steering Committee, Centre for Museum Cultures
- Committee member, British Association for Victorian Studies
Research projects
Art, Labour and Devotion: Uncovering the Victorian Art-Workman.
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in working on aspects of nineteenth-century literature and culture that relate to my research interests.
Current doctoral researchers
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EMILY SHARMA
Teaching
I teach across the BA in English literature, the MA in Victorian Studies and on the new MA in English Literature and Culture. I have supervised BA dissertations on literature from the Renaissance to the present day and MA dissertations on topics ranging from Walter Pater and the poetics of antiquity to opium eating in the Cambridgeshire fens.
Teaching modules
- Writing London
- Victorian Masculinities
- Fin-De-Siecle
- The Arts: Questioning the Contemporary World
- Rewriting our World
- Dissertation (Literature and Culture 1800-present)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Mills, Victoria (2020) Charles Kingsley's 'Hypatia', visual culture and Late-Victorian gender politics. Journal of Victorian Culture 25 (2), pp. 240-263. ISSN 1355-5502.
- Mills, Victoria (2011) The museum as 'Dream Space': Psychology and aesthetic response in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 12, ISSN 1755-1560.
- Mills, Victoria (2009) ‘”A long, sunny harvest of taste and curiosity”: Collecting, aesthetics and the female body in Henry James’s 'The Spoils of Poynton’. Women’s History Review 18 (4), pp. 669-686. ISSN 0961-2025.
- Mills, Victoria (2006) The album as museum? A response to Patrizia di Bello on an interdisciplinary approach to Mrs Birkbeck's Album. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 0 (2), ISSN 1755-1560.
- Mills, Victoria (1998) Using museums to teach English language and literature: three projects at the Geffrye Museum. Journal of Education in Museums 19, ISSN 0260-9126.
- Mills, Victoria (1995) Fiction, empathy and teaching history. Teaching History 81, pp. 7-9. ISSN 0040-0610.
Book
- Kontou, T. and Mills, Victoria, eds. (2022) Victorian material culture. Victorian Material Culture. Routledge. ISBN 9781138225268.
- Mills, Victoria and Nichols, K., eds. (2022) Victorian arts. Victorian Material Culture. Routledge. ISBN 9781138225329.
Book review
- Mills, Victoria (2019) Paraphernalia! Victorian Objects by Helen Kingstone, Kate Lister.
- Mills, Victoria (2016) Deborah Lutz. Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture.
Book section
- Mills, Victoria (2024) ’Greece at last!’: desire, aesthetics and the ecology of ruin in Vernon Lee’s Greek travel writing. In: Despotopoulou, A. and Mitsi, E. (eds.) Victorians and Modern Greece: Literary and Cultural Encounters. Modern Greek & Byzantine Studies, Routledge British School at Athens). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781032495200. (In Press)
- Mills, Victoria (2022) Vision, history and the Tauchnitz editions of George Eliot's 'Romola'. In: Pelizzari, M.A. and Wilcox, S. (eds.) The Idea of Italy: Photography and the British Imagination, 1840-1900. New Haven, U.S.: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300263831.
- Mills, Victoria (2020) Women and the imagination of museums. In: Scholl, L. (ed.) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing. Palgrave. ISBN 9783030027216.
- Mills, Victoria (2015) Photography, travel writing and tactile tourism: extra-illustrating 'The Marble Faun'. In: Murray, B.H. and Henes, M. (eds.) Travel Writing, Visual Culture and Form 1760-1900. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. pp. 65-86. ISBN 9781137543394.
- Mills, Victoria (2013) Bricabracomania! Collecting, corporeality and the problem of things in Victorian fiction. In: Shears, J. and Harrison, J. (eds.) Bric-à-Brac in Victorian Literature - Oddities and Commodities. Nineteenth century series. Ashgate. ISBN 9781409439905.
- Mills, Victoria (2012) ‘Books in my Hands — Books in my Heart — Books in my Brain’: Bibliomania, the male body, and sensory erotics in late-Victorian literature. In: Boehm, K. (ed.) Bodies and Things in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Palgrave. pp. 130-152. ISBN 9780230369382.
- Mills, Victoria (2009) Dandyism, visuality and the ‘Camp Gem’: collections of jewels in Huysmans and Wilde. In: Calè, Luisa and Di Bello, Patrizia (eds.) Illustrations, Optics and Objects in Nineteenth-Century Visual and Literary Cultures. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. pp. 147-166. ISBN 9780230221970.
Editorial
- Mills, Victoria and Tilley, Heather (2023) Victorian beauty. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 34, Birkbeck University. ISSN 1755-1560.
- Boehm, K. and Mills, Victoria (2017) Introduction: mediating the materiality of the past, 1700–1930. Word and Image 33 (3), pp. 233-239. Taylor and Francis. ISSN 0266-6286.
- Mills, Victoria (2016) Curating feeling. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (23), Birkbeck University. ISSN 1755-1560.
- Mills, Victoria (2008) Victorian fiction and the material imagination. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 0 (6), Birkbeck University. ISSN 1755-1560.
Exhibition
- Mills, Victoria and Bown, Nicola and Smith, A. Victorian sentimentality.
Other
- Mills, Victoria (2015) The fallen woman and the Foundling Hospital. London, UK: The Foundling Museum.
- Mills, Victoria and Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2004) Evaluating learning. Leicester, Department of Museum Studies.
- Mills, Victoria (2004) Social inclusion. Leicester University, Department of Museum Studies.
Video
- Mills, Vicky and Ford, L. (2025) The man who painted his house. Derek Jarman Lab.
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Business and community
Business and community
Outreach
Co-Curator 'Victorian Sentimentality' (with Alison Smith and Nicola Bown) Tate Britain, 2011
Exhibition Researcher, 'The Fallen Woman', Curated by Lynda Nead, Foundling Museum, 2015. My catalogue essay on the research I undertook for the exhibition. A film based on this project.
Silent Orchid Summer School in association with Birmingham Arts and Science Festival July 2020