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Air and Apocalyptic Atmospheres : Mathilde Blind’s Manchester Poetry

Barrow, Barbara LU and Diedrick, James (2026)
Abstract
In the 1880s, the Anglo-German feminist freethinker Mathilde Blind wrote a series of poems inspired by her residence in Manchester. Our chapter reads Blind’s Manchester poems through the lens of the atmospheric humanities, focusing on how these poems show the entanglement of the human with both urban and natural environments, gesture towards an imagined future for those marginalized in industrial cities, and solicit a reading practice that centers the sky and air. Ultimately, we argue, Blind’s atmospheric poetry prophesies a future world redeemed through women’s creative power and a recognition of the profoundly intertwined nature of environmental and labor abuses.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
in press
subject
host publication
Brill Companion to the Literary History of the Early Anthropocene
editor
Fastrup, Anne ; Heine, Stefanie ; Rasmussen, Sebastian Ørtoft and Vogelius, Christa Holm
publisher
Brill
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d51bd7ef-a6b4-4ded-b66a-88d33ee04ad0
date added to LUP
2026-05-10 17:05:28
date last changed
2026-05-26 14:52:39
@inbook{d51bd7ef-a6b4-4ded-b66a-88d33ee04ad0,
  abstract     = {{In the 1880s, the Anglo-German feminist freethinker Mathilde Blind wrote a series of poems inspired by her residence in Manchester. Our chapter reads Blind’s Manchester poems through the lens of the atmospheric humanities, focusing on how these poems show the entanglement of the human with both urban and natural environments, gesture towards an imagined future for those marginalized in industrial cities, and solicit a reading practice that centers the sky and air. Ultimately, we argue, Blind’s atmospheric poetry prophesies a future world redeemed through women’s creative power and a recognition of the profoundly intertwined nature of environmental and labor abuses.}},
  author       = {{Barrow, Barbara and Diedrick, James}},
  booktitle    = {{Brill Companion to the Literary History of the Early Anthropocene}},
  editor       = {{Fastrup, Anne and Heine, Stefanie and Rasmussen, Sebastian Ørtoft and Vogelius, Christa Holm}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Brill}},
  title        = {{Air and Apocalyptic Atmospheres : Mathilde Blind’s Manchester Poetry}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}