Strange, Julie-Marie 1973–

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Strange, Julie-Marie 1973–

PERSONAL:

Born August 2, 1973. Education: University of Wales, B.A., M.Phil.; University of Liverpool, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, Oxford Rd., Manchester M13 9PL, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Manchester, Manchester, England, 2003—; previously served as a lecturer for Birkbeck College, University of London, London, England, for two years; and as a research assistant for the United Africa Company archives for nine months.

WRITINGS:

Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(Editor, with Francesca Carnevali) Twentieth-Century Britain: Economic, Cultural and Social Change, 2nd edition, Pearson Longman (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to various journals, including Social History, Social History of Medicine, and Women's History Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer and educator Julie-Marie Strange was born August 2, 1973. She attended the University of Wales, where she earned both her undergraduate degree and a master's of philosophy. She then continued her education at the University of Liverpool, where she earned her doctorate. Over the course of her career, Strange has spent nine months in the employ of the United Africa Company, serving as a research assistant for the firm's archives, and she served as a lecturer for Birkbeck College at the University of London for two years. Since leaving Birkbeck, she has been serving on the faculty at the University of Manchester. Her primary areas of research and academic interest include the different ways in which various cultures have dealt with death and the bereavement process, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a special emphasis on the types of language that has traditionally been used when referring to loss or the love for someone who has passed on, particularly among the working classes. In addition, Strange is interested in love relationships among the lower classes and how those emotions are depicted and shared among the poor, especially in slum areas. She is also interested in the passionate and sensational novels of the Victorian era and several cultural features of that time period, including the popularity of the life story and the role of the railway in the Victorian culture. Strange has contributed to a number of academic journals, including Social History, Social History of Medicine, and Women's History Review. She is also the author of Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914, and the coeditor, along with Francesca Carnevali, of Twentieth-Century Britain: Economic, Cultural and Social Change.

In Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914, Strange addresses the marked difference in attitudes and behavior toward the bereavement process between the middle classes and the working classes in both the Victorian and the Edwardian eras in England. Individuals of the middle class were frequently confused, offended, or suspicious of the ways in which the working classes chose to grieve and to formally say goodbye to their loved ones upon their deaths. In many cases, working-class funerals were considered too lavish for the occasion and too costly for the pockets of the bereaved. In other instances, the outlandish displays were thought to be garish and inappropriate for what should be a solemn occasion. Working-class people were even accused of horrific behavior in regard to the dead, including hurrying along the process in order to get access to any potential inheritance, since of course the working classes would be in need of the money, or of hastening a child's death or even killing it outright in order to gain an insurance payout. Strange addresses how common these accusations were, and how, in some instances, the testimony of the middle classes has actually been regarded as an historical record of the funeral practices of the working class in the place of more neutral records. Strange attempts to give a clearer picture of the ways in which the working class dealt with bereavement, providing actual testimony and examples rather than hearsay from members of the middle classes who did not understand the point of view of their working-class neighbors. Chris Waters, writing for the Canadian Journal of History, remarked that "Strange offers a comprehensive account of the relationship between death and poverty in later Victorian and Edwardian Britain, systematically taking the reader through the phases of illness, death, burial, and remembrance as experienced by the poor." A contributor for the Contemporary Review opined that Strange "has a lot to say in delineating working-class attitudes and behaviour and makes a sizeable contribution to our understanding of the subject."