Epstein, James 1948–

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Epstein, James 1948–

(James A. Epstein)

PERSONAL:

Born April 13, 1948, in St. Louis, MO; divorced; children: three. Education: University of Sussex, B.A., 1970; University of Birmingham, England, Ph.D., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Vanderbilt University, VU Station B, No. 351802, 2301 Vanderbilt Pl., Nashville, TN 37235-1802. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, educator, and historian. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, assistant professor, 1986-90, associate professor, 1990-95, professor of history and director of undergraduate studies, 1995—. Presenter at academic conferences and meetings.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association (member of Morris D. Forkosch Prize committee), North American Conference on British Studies, Southern Conference on British Studies (member of executive committee), Society for the Study of Labor History, Association of Caribbean Historians.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Council of Learned Societies Grant, 1978; Social Science Research Council Grant, 1978; Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 1983-84; American Council of Learned Societies Grant, 1985; National Humanities Center Fellowship, 1985-86; Bernadotte E. Schmitt Award, 1989; American Philosophical Society Research Grant, 1989; Vanderbilt Humanities Center Fellowship, 1989-90; American Council of Learned Societies grant, 1990; National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, 1989, 1990; Walter D. Love Prize for best article published in 1989, North American Conference on British Studies, 1989, for "Understanding the Cap of Liberty"; National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, 1994-95; British Council Prize in the Humanities, for best book in British studies 1800 to the present, 1995, for Radical Expression; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library, 2001; Vanderbilt Research Scholar Grant, 2002-03; Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, 2003.

WRITINGS:

The Lion of Freedom: Feargus O'Connor and the Chartist Movement, 1832-1842, Croom Helm (London, England), 1982.

(Editor, with Dorothy Thompson) The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and Culture, 1830-60, Macmillan Press (London, England), 1982.

(Under name James A. Epstein) Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790-1850, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain, Stanford University Press (Palo Alto, CA), 2003.

Advisory editor for books, including Popular Politics and Power, 1817-1822, edited by Leonora Nattrass, Pickering & Chatto (Brookfield, VT), 1998; William Cobbert: Selected Writings, edited by Leonora Nattrass, Pickering & Chatto (Brookfield, VT), 1998; From Reaction to Rebellion, 1802-1810, edited by Leonora Nattrass, Pickering & Chatto (Brookfield, VT), 1998; A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, 1829, edited by Leonora Nattrass, Pickering & Chatto (Brookfield, VT), 1998; Peasant Politics, 1830-1835, edited by Leonora Nattrass, Pickering & Chatto (Brookfield, VT), 1998; and Reform, 1810-1817, edited by Leonora Nattrass, Pickering & Chatto (Brookfield, VT), 1998.

Contributor to books, including Encyclopedia of Social History, Garland (New York, NY), 1993; Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain, edited by Gillian Russell and Claire Tuite, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2002; Intellectuals and Public Life, edited by Leon Fink, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1996; and Re-Reading the Constitution, edited by James Vernon, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Contributor to periodicals and journals, including Social History, International Review of Social History, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labor History, International Labor and Working Class History, Labour/Le Travail, Albion, Journal of Social History, Vanderbilt Law Review, Journal of Victorian Culture, Labor History, London Review of Books, South Atlantic Quarterly, American Historical Review, and the Journal of British Studies. Journal of British Studies, member of editorial board, 1991-96, coeditor, 2000-05.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer, educator, and historian James Epstein is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University. There, he also serves as the director of undergraduate studies. He earned a B.A. (with honors) from the University of Sussex, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, in England. At Vanderbilt, Epstein teaches a variety of courses at the graduate and undergraduate level, most focusing on topics in modern British and European history. Epstein concentrates his scholarly and research efforts in the field of British history and culture, with a further specialization in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British political culture, noted a biographer on the Vanderbilt University Department of History Web site. He is a frequent contributor to professional journals and related publications, and often functions as a presenter at academic conferences and meetings in England, Europe, and throughout the world. He has been a coeditor of the Journal of British Studies. Epstein is a member of the executive committee of the Southern Conference on British Studies. He also serves on the American Historical Association's Morris D. Forkosch Prize committee.

In Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790-1850, Epstein "provides British historians with a much needed study of the ideas and symbols that underpin nineteenth-century radicalism and help explain its development," commented Jodie M. Minor, writing in the Journal of Social History. His study concerns the ways in which Plebian radicals expressed their beliefs, and includes background information on those particular beliefs as well. Epstein begins his work with a consideration of the "dominance of popular constitutionalism in the early nineteenth century," noted Stewart Weaver in Victorian Studies. He notes how radicals of the time felt compelled to invoke the British constitution "to confirm and defend their historically conditioned rights as freeborn Englishmen," Weaver remarked. He explores the rhetoric of constitutionalism and also assesses how it applied to the radical cause.

In other essays, he covers topics such as radical journalist T.J. Wooler's legal troubles, in which he was tried for seditious libel. Wooler's defense included an application of the Magna Carta and all social and political concepts that derived from it. Wooler's "effective acquittal in both cases not only secured his own liberty, but (briefly) legitimated the radical appropriation of England's dominant political mythology," Weaver stated. Epstein offers another essay in counterpoint to Wooler in which he profiles Richard Carlile, a Paineite rationalist who also harbored deep hatred toward the British constitution. Finally, Epstein considers the rituals embedded in radical dining in the nineteenth century. Epstein's book "provides historians with an important analysis of a topic which has received too little attention—radical culture and symbols before Chartism," Minor remarked.

In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain, Epstein contributes a collection of essays "exploring the utility of the linguistic turn in looking at the cultural history of popular politics in early nineteenth-century Britain," commented Thomas William Heyck, writing in History: Review of New Books. This "linguistic turn" occurred when new historians working in the 1980s and 1990s fell into disagreement with the dominant ideas of social history. This "new generation of historians has rejected Marxism in its varying forms and turned to postmodernism and poststructuralism for inspiration. The resulting ‘linguistic turn’ has proved highly controversial and provoked extensive debates about the limits of historical understanding," explained Peter Weiler in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Historians who still subscribe to the notions of social history clash with newer historians who believe that "language or discourse constitutes social reality" and that methods of textual deconstruction and criticism are the only useful ways of understanding and interpreting the past, Weiler stated. With In Practice, Epstein seeks to establish a middle ground between the two extremes, accepting the effects of the postmodern linguistic turn while keeping intact some elements of the older social history approach.

In the book, Epstein assesses the theoretical contributions of Gareth Stedman Jones and Patrick Joyce, two prominent English historians generally credited with being leaders of the linguistic turn among their fellow British historians. Epstein combines an appreciation of the two men with cogent criticisms of their work. In other essays, Epstein addresses ways in which to put his modified linguistic theories into practice. These essays demonstrate Epstein's "admirable ability to tease out meanings from the verbal and symbolic aspects of radical speech performances," Heyck observed. "This combination of theory and practice is one of the great virtues of this work, and makes it ideal for assigning in graduate seminars. Indeed, for a work that engages with postmodernism, it wears its learning lightly and reads well," commented Albion contributor Michael T. Saler. Language, Epstein believes, is only one part of what makes up human agency. "All the world is, then, Epstein suggests, not a text; there is such a thing as context, something that is material, precedes the text, and conditions its creation and interpretation. Thus, workers in the 19th century—for whom ‘class’ remained a lived, real thing—could interpret the meaning of words to best reflect their material interests rather than allowing themselves to be constructed by words," observed Steven Fielding in Labour/Le Travail.

Epstein "is at his best in practice, working up close to particular texts, moments, and forms, and teasing out their complexities," remarked James Vernon in Victorian Studies. "There are some fine essays here by a fine historian of political culture," Vernon continued. Epstein looks, for example, at the 1794 trial of Joseph Gerrald, accused of seditious libel. This and other essays in the book "wonderfully demonstrate how broader changes in political culture, such as an increasingly repressive state and the transition from the mass to the party platform, transformed the meanings of particular discourses and their conditions of possibility," Vernon stated. "Epstein has important things to say about the writing of history in these essays, and this is, after all, a book about language," mused R.I. McKibben in a Journal of Modern History review. In Practice stands as a "successful engagement with recent theoretical debates and an example of how historians can benefit from them in practice," Weiler concluded.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, spring, 2004, Michael T. Saler, review of In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain, p. 174.

American Historical Review, April, 1983, review of The Lion of Freedom: Feargus O'Connor and the Chartist Movement, 1832-1842, p. 393; February, 1996, Marc Baer, review of Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790-1850, p. 182.

Canadian Journal of History, December, 2004, Lawrence Black, review of In Practice, p. 614.

English Historical Review, November, 2004, E.F. Biagini, review of In Practice, p. 1445.

Historian, autumn, 1995, R.W. Davis, review of Radical Expression, p. 167.

Historical Journal, June 1, 2000, William Stafford, "Shall We Take the Linguistic Turn? British Radicalism in the Era of the French Revolution," p. 583.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2003, Thomas William Heyck, review of In Practice, p. 14.

History: The Journal of the Historical Association, July, 1997, H.T. Dickinson, review of Radical Expression, p. 517.

History Today, December, 1985, review of The Lion of Freedom, p. 47.

Journal of British Studies, April, 1996, Anna Clark, review of Radical Expression, p. 269.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, summer, 2004, Peter Weiler, review of In Practice, p. 127.

Journal of Modern History, September, 1996, Laura Tabili, review of Radical Expression, p. 683; June, 2005, R.I. McKibbin, review of In Practice, p. 423.

Journal of Social History, winter, 1995, Jodie M. Minor, review of Radical Expression, p. 438.

Journal of Victorian Culture, winter, 2005, Helen Rogers, review of In Practice, p. 314.

Labour/Le Travail, fall, 2005, Steven Fielding, review of In Practice, p. 344.

Law and History Review, spring, 1997, Ronald Schultz, review of Radical Expression, p. 174.

Social History, October, 1996, Dror Wahrman, review of Radical Expression, p. 343.

Times Literary Supplement, July 28, 1995, Peter Ghosh, review of Radical Expression, p. 28.

Victorian Studies, autumn, 1995, Stewart Weaver, review of Radical Expression, p. 65; summer, 2004, James Vernon, review of In Practice, p. 675.