Persistent Ruskin

Examining the wide-ranging implications of Ruskin's engagement with his contemporaries and followers this collection is organized around three related themes: Ruskin's intellectual legacy and the extent to which its address to working men and women and children was realised in practice; Ruskin's followers and their sites of influence especially those related to the formation of collections museums archives and galleries representing values and ideas associated with Ruskin; and the extent to which Ruskin's work constructed a world-wide network of followers movements and social gestures that acknowledge his authority and influence. As the introduction shows Ruskin's continuing digital presence is striking and makes a case for Ruskin's persistent presence. The collection begins with essays on Ruskin's intellectual presence in nineteenth-century thought with some emphasis on his interest in the education of women. This section is followed by one on Ruskin's followers from the mid-nineteenth century into twentieth-century modernism that looks at a broad range of cultural activities that sought to further repudiate or exemplify Ruskin's work and teaching. Working-class education the Ruskinian periodical plays and science fiction are all considered along with the Bloomsbury Group's engagement with Ruskin's thought and writing. Essays on Ruskin abroad-in America Australia and India round out the collection.