This is a curious repository of images, writings, and ephemera dedicated to all sorts of "freaks" of culture and "freaks" of nature.
I am a researcher, writer, and educator with an educational background in Victorian literature and culture, archival studies, book history, and gender and sexuality studies (BA & MA in English, San Francisco State University / PhD in English, University of California, Riverside.) I am currently working on two research projects, both of which are committed to expanding our understandings of archives and their materials. Based on my doctoral dissertation, Freaking the Archive proposes a "freak" method of archival research committed to expanding definitions of archives and evidence based on the peculiar conventions of the nineteenth-century freak show. My other research project turns to "freak's" etymological root as an unexpected environmental phenomenon. Strange Flora explores the usually-overlooked presences of plants within the "climate change archive." Mapping out vernacular botanizing practices that cropped up around Carl Linnaeus' twenty-fourth class of plants (algae, fungi, ferns, mosses, and lichens) during the long nineteenth century (1790-1920), Strange Flora argues that Victorian cultures of botanical archiving help us to address the questions that currently shape the field of biodiversity informatics. I am currently a lecturer in English at California State University, San Bernardino, and a 2020 Researcher-in-Residence with the Oak Springs Garden Foundation. My academic writing appears and is forthcoming in Journal of Victorian Culture, Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Victorian Literature and Culture, and Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women Writers.
As a Victorian collector born too late, I'm an enthusiastic sorter, pinner, and saver. You can comb through my strange collections at: https://www.pinterest.com/iamgarascia/
I also enjoy (and occasionally write about) beers and cocktails, dogs, weird plants, footie (COYS), and distance running-- in their Victorian and contemporary forms. You can read about these on my blog, which collects up the bits and bobs that don't quite make it into my academic writings.
I am a researcher, writer, and educator with an educational background in Victorian literature and culture, archival studies, book history, and gender and sexuality studies (BA & MA in English, San Francisco State University / PhD in English, University of California, Riverside.) I am currently working on two research projects, both of which are committed to expanding our understandings of archives and their materials. Based on my doctoral dissertation, Freaking the Archive proposes a "freak" method of archival research committed to expanding definitions of archives and evidence based on the peculiar conventions of the nineteenth-century freak show. My other research project turns to "freak's" etymological root as an unexpected environmental phenomenon. Strange Flora explores the usually-overlooked presences of plants within the "climate change archive." Mapping out vernacular botanizing practices that cropped up around Carl Linnaeus' twenty-fourth class of plants (algae, fungi, ferns, mosses, and lichens) during the long nineteenth century (1790-1920), Strange Flora argues that Victorian cultures of botanical archiving help us to address the questions that currently shape the field of biodiversity informatics. I am currently a lecturer in English at California State University, San Bernardino, and a 2020 Researcher-in-Residence with the Oak Springs Garden Foundation. My academic writing appears and is forthcoming in Journal of Victorian Culture, Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Victorian Literature and Culture, and Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women Writers.
As a Victorian collector born too late, I'm an enthusiastic sorter, pinner, and saver. You can comb through my strange collections at: https://www.pinterest.com/iamgarascia/
I also enjoy (and occasionally write about) beers and cocktails, dogs, weird plants, footie (COYS), and distance running-- in their Victorian and contemporary forms. You can read about these on my blog, which collects up the bits and bobs that don't quite make it into my academic writings.