DR RACHEL DICKINSON

Dr RACHEL DICKINSON is Reader in Interdisciplinary Studies & English at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she is Co-Director of the Long Nineteenth Century Network. Her research, publication and engagement activity flow from a specialism in Victorian polymath John Ruskin, which began with doctoral work on archival correspondence (Lancaster 2005). 

Experienced at running projects and collaborating with partners, she conceived and coordinated a bicentenary ‘Festival of Ruskin in Manchester’ (2019) and developed a follow-on ‘Everyone Deserves Space: Ruskin’s Manchester Now’ (2022) with SuAndi and the National Black Arts Alliance. She was P-I on the AHRC-funded ‘Celebrations: Victorian and Edwardian Greeting Cards’ engagement and digitisation project (2022).  Her publications include articles on Ruskin, art and textiles, and she has given invited lectures and talks on Ruskin in Canada, France, Italy, the USA, as well as the UK. She is writing a monograph on Ruskin and textiles.

A textiles practitioner, she has been a member of the Lancs & Lakes Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers for more than a decade. In 2019 she was elected the first female Master of Ruskin’s Guild of St George, an educational charity for arts, crafts and the rural economy.