Dr Marion Loeffler

(she/her)

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

Modern Welsh History and Cultural History

My research focuses on Wales in its British, European and Empire contexts, and on the interplay of politics, religion, culture (in its narrower sense) and language between c.1715 and the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The decades between the French Revolution of 1789 and the 1850s, alternatively called Biedermeier, the Age of Revolutions, and the Romantic period, are at the centre of my research.  In Wales, they were marked by a cultural renaissance which was partly fuelled by British and international trends and connections, and by an industrialisation that connected Wales with the remainder of Europe.

I am interested in how ideas and concepts travelled over time and space: What was in people's minds when they were discussing 'druids' or 'revolution' in different periods and languages? I consider lives as the shortest strands of history, microcosms shaping and shaped by larger historical events. As Assistant Editor of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography I try to improve the entries of women and men of all classes, creeds and colours. I explore how the religious was political and vice versa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Who were the Unitarians and why were they such political firebrands? Last but not least, the complex identity of Wales and the Welsh as cultural nation and member of the Empire form the basis of my research and teaching.

Projects on which I have worked include:

• A Social History of the Welsh Language
• Iolo Morganwg and the Romantic Tradition in Wales
• Wales and the French Revolution
• The Celtic Languages and Cultural Identity
• Knowledge Transfer and Social Networks: European Scholarship and the Revolution in Welsh Victorian Learning

Teaching

I am on sabbatical in 2023-24, but here are some student opinions and my new option modules for 2024-25

Some student evaluations of my option modules:

'Teaching staff have gone above and beyond to ensure that the transfer to online learning has not affected our
learning. They have posted everything online in an organised fashion so that it has been easy to access all the require material for lectures and seminars. The Q&A sessions that have been provided have been of great value in enhancing our knowledge and understanding of certain aspects of the module, and they have been rather useful in helping me retain skills with regard to source analysis via their format. Staff have even utilised the unfortunate circumstances of this year for the benefit of us by posting lectures in advance so that everybody has an equal chance with regard to the upcoming essay.'

'My favourite module I really had great communication with my lecturer and seminar tutor, and the seminars were really helpful, the feedback was vital and really just enjoyable.'

Fields: Enlightenment(s), Modern Welsh History; Wales and the French Revolution; Cultural History; Modern British History, Conceptual History

In 2024-25 my new option module (co-taught with Dr Ashley Walsh) is: HS6215: 'European Enlightenment(s): The View from the Margins'

'What do Sir Isaac Newton, Welsh druids and Norwegian language reforms have in common? Take this module to find out!

 Enlightenment ideas have been central in the creation of the modern world and helped shape what we take for granted today. This module moves the focus from Paris, Geneva and Berlin to consider how the Enlightenment manifested itself on the periphery – from the British Isles to Scandinavia and the Habsburg Empire. Rather than high philosophical texts we’ll examine popular and everyday sources, from bridges and buildings to ketchup recipes and strange new dictionaries. Our focus is firmly on the diverse expressions of Enlightenment, which included taming nature, improving communication and modernising economies, linking education and religion, and adapting modern concepts like rights, nationhood and radicalism to a variety of national and regional contexts. All textual sources will be available in English translation.'

My new Year Three option module is: 'Peripheral Reverberations of the French Revolution'

'What connects ‘La Marseillaise’, radical London publication The Hog’s Wash, and international revolutionary Thomas Paine with druidic assemblies, medieval Welsh princes and rural Welsh rebels?

 Find out how ideas, publications, songs and symbols of the French Revolution of 1789 were received in metropolitan Britain and from there adapted into a still rural, provincial culture. Our heroes on this module are the ‘lost generation’ of radicals and revolutionaries who moved between London, Wales and America; our sources are the radical texts, songs, cartoons and objects produced between 1789 and 1802; our aim is to explore in which ways peripheral, often rural, cultures received the epoch-making political ideas of the French Revolution, rejecting them or making them their own. What you learn in this module can be applied to processes of knowledge exchange between peripheral and hegemonic European cultures to be a springboard to further research. All non-English sources will be available in English translation.'

I will continue to convene MA option module HST084: 'Reading Welsh History: Nation, Class and Gender', first offered in 2021-2022

From the late eighteenth century, the forces of urbanisation, industrialisation, and globalisation transformed Welsh society and culture. Historians of Wales have approached the question of such structural change by exploring the impact upon Welsh language and culture, class politics and protest, the movement of people, and through gendered, racial and ethnic identities. This module takes a conceptual approach to examine how historians have shaped histories of modern Wales, and it provides students with the opportunity to advance the skills necessary for developing their own original contribution to Welsh history.

The module focus includes the nation and national histories, Welsh culture, gender history, class and politics, and social movements and agency. These themes will be explored from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries, and, where appropriate, within a transnational context. You will engage with the latest cutting-edge research as well as classic Welsh history articles and monographs. Closely reading classic texts of the past century, which were as much expressions of international historiographical trends as they shaped Welsh history-writing, as well as the very latest scholarly writings, you will gain a deeper knowledge of modern Welsh history. You will also work closely with primary sources, drawing upon the wealth of local archival materials to practice vital historical skills.

Biography

I took my undergraduate degree and wrote my doctoral dissertation at Humboldt University Berlin, gaining my PhD. in 1994. From 1994 until 2017, I worked at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, as a Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow, and Head of Graduate Studies.

My early volume Englisch und Kymrisch in Wales: Geschichte der Sprachsituation und Sprachpolitik (1997) focused on the history of the English language in Wales. I contributed essays to the pioneering Social History of the Welsh Language (1994–2001) series, have published on the development of the Pan-Celtic movement in the nineteenth century, and was Managing Editor of the five-volume Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (2001–2005), produced by the project The Celtic Languages and Cultural Identity.  In 2007, I published a monograph on The Literary and Historical Legacy of Iolo Morganwg, 1826–1926, which outlined the influence the cultural entrepreneur and forger Edward Williams exerted on Welsh and international culture, but also which aspects of his rather radical life were forgotten in Victorian Wales.

My volumes Welsh Responses to the French Revolution: Press and Public Discourse 1789-1802 (2012) and Political Pamphlets and Sermons from Wales 1790-1806 (2014) engage with the reception, reworking and distribution of political material, concepts and ideas in Wales.

I have published widely on the cultural history of Wales from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, focusing on knowledge exchanges by cultural adaptation, the development of political concepts like 'revolution' in the British Isles and their expressions in Welsh, and the ways in which international diplomats and scholars linked Wales with a wider scholarly community, but also with the British Empire. In this I have drawn on the research conducted during my Leverhulme-funded project 'Knowledge Transfer and Social Networks: European Learning and the Revolution in Welsh Victorian Scholarship' (2014-2016), which explored the life, times and European connections of the historian and social reformer Thomas Stephens of Merthyr Tydfil.

My current research interests are Enlightenment echoes in Wales and their reflection in the development of political concepts and eisteddfodau in the first half of the nineteenth century, especially in the connection with the British Empire and its ideology.

Honours and awards

August 2023 Admitted as a member to the Gorsedd of the Bards of the Isle of Britain 

July 2021-July 2022 'Research Wales Innovation' Civic Mission Grant awarded by Cardiff University Widening Participation and Engagement to develop and deliver a Welsh-language KS4 Masterclass and digital teaching aid on 'The Merthyr Tydfil Protests of 1800'

June-July 2021 Cardiff University CESI Summer Placements Grant 21 to supervise 3 paid students placements researching 'Alternatives to Formal Exams' to inform changing assessment practice

2020 Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol Grant to supervise the creation of  'Llyfryddiaeth Esboniadol a Chymorth Dysgu ac Addysgu (Digidol) o Ffynonellau Cynradd Cymraeg Printiedig y 18fed Ganrif yng Nhgasgliadau Arbennig Llyfrgell y Dyniaethau Prifysgol Caerdydd' (An Annotated Catalogue and Digital Teaching Help of Printed Primary Sources in the Welsh Language at Special Collections of Cardiff University Humanities Library) (postponed until end of pandemic)

Cardiff University CUROP Grant 33: 'Dowlais Iron Works Letters, 1852-1854: Crisis, Cholera and Negotiation'. Under my supervision, a substantial number of letters was transcribed and edited by Joint Honours BA History and English Literature student Eve Lewis and made available to the public (summer 2019)

Prize of the Editorial Board, The Transactions of the Radnorshire Society (2018)

Conference Grant, Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (2016)

'Bravo Aberystwyth', radio documentary on the expulsion of a German professor in Aberystwyth in 1914, Welsh entry and shortlisted at the Celtic Media Festival, Inverness (2014)

Conference Grant, Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (2014)

Project Grant, The Leverhulme Trust (2013-2015)

Prize of the Editorial Board, The Transactions of the Radnorshire Society (2012)

AHRC travel grant, XIII. International Congress of Celtic Studies, Bonn (2006)

European Small Film Festival, Special Jury Prize for the BBC Cymru/ORB Germany television documentary Yn ôl i’r Wal – Zurück zur Mauer (‘Back to the Wall’) (1999)

German-British Forum, Award for ‘The most positive contribution to German-British relations in 1998’ (for the BBC2 television documentary ‘Two Kisses for a Sleeping Princess’ on Wales in Europe – shared with Sir Norman Foster for his work on the Reichstag building in Berlin) (1998)

Postdoctoral research grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) (1994)

Postgraduate research grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) (1992)

Professional memberships

Cyfarthfa Foundation (non-Excecutive Director) https://www.cyfarthfafoundation.wales/ 

Dictionary of Welsh Biography (Board Member) https://biography.wales/ 

Darlithydd Cysylltiol Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol

Women's Archive Wales (Committee) The Committee (womensarchivewales.org)

Women's History Network

Fellow of the Royal Historical Academy

British Society for Victorian Studies

Ceredigion Historical Society

Botwm Byd

Academic positions

July 2019 - present Reader in Welsh History and History, Cardiff University

2018 - July 2019 Lecturer in Welsh History, Cardiff University

2014 -  2022  Assistant Editor Dictionary of Welsh Biography

1994 - 2017 Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Graduate Studies at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth

1990 - 1994 Lecturer at the Department for English and American Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin

Speaking engagements

12 March 2024, ‘“Hawddammor! Ddydd diddymiant – Caethiwedd”: Golwg ar Gymreigyddion y Fenni a’r Ymerodraeth’, Seminar Delivered to the Welsh Department, Aberystwyth University

4 March 2024, ‘Judicial Terror’: Judge George Hardinge and the Aftermath of the Merthyr Tydfil Riots of September 1800’, Merthyr Tydfil History Society

1 March 2024, ‘Wales als Nation seit der Einheit 1536’ * ‘Wales as a nation since the Union of 1536’, Session delivered to European Grant holders of the Konrad Adenauer Highly Gifted Grants during their visit to Cardiff

11 December 2023, ‘Celebrating Lives: From Archive to History’, Guest speaker of Explore Your Archive, Archives and Records Association national campaign exhibition and open day hosted by Gwent Archives, Ebbw Vale

22 November 2023, ‘British wars, Welsh Unitarians and radical anti-fast day liturgies in the 1790s’, Seminar, SHARE Ancient History and Religion Research Seminar’

20 November 2023, ‘Jac Glan-y-Gors, Chwyldro Frengig 1789 a thim pêl droed Cymru’, Adran Diwylliant 18-19 Ganrif (Cymdeithas Cyn-fyfyrwyr Prifysgol Cymru)

4 November 2023, ‘New Enlightenments in Glamorgan: Teaching, Building, Improving the Land’, Glamorgan History Society Day School on ‘A World of New Ideas’

20-21 July 2023, 'Dissenters, poets and radical translators. Undercover radicals in 1790s Wales' at Organise! Organise! Organise!  Durham University & the History Parliament Conference 

4-6 July 2023, 'Welsh Echoes of Richard Price' at Recovering Richard Price Conference, Cardiff University

19 January 2023, 'Thomas Evans (Tomos Glyn Cothi, 1764-1833): The Beauty of the Bilingual Mind', The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion Lecture, London

12 January 2023, 'Translating the French Revolution to Wales: Thomas Paine in a Celtic Language', Entangled Histories of Revolution: Case Studies conference, University of Milano, Bicocca & Kings College London, Milano

14 December 2022, ‘Awkward Pioneer? Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi and the Welsh Tradition’, Lecture Women’s Archive Wales

20-22 June 2022, 'Cysyniadau, Ymylnodau a Thatw: Llawysgrifau Tomos Glyn Cothi (1766–1833)', Cynhadledd Llawysgrifau Cymru 800-1800 / Welsh Manuscripts Conference 800-1800, The National Library of Wales 

6-7 June 2022, ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ and ‘Land of My Fathers’: Subaltern Uses of a ‘National Chorus’, international conference on 'Wales and the World', University of Wales Trinity St Davids', Lampeter

7 March 2022, 'Busting Myths: Childhood, the DDR and the Fall of the Berlin Wall', Monmouth School for Boys, presentation for Sixth-form students

15 February 2022, 'Arloeswraig Anesmwyth: Hester Piozzi a'r Traddodiad Cymreig' [An Uneasy Pioneer: Hster Piozzi and the Welsh Tradition], Women's Archive Wales

9–12 September 2021, 'Reverberations of 1848; Subaltern Western Peripheries', 'Modern Revolutions and the Idea of Europe', 12th Annual Conference of the Research Network on the History of the Idea of Europe, Athens 

1-3 September 2021, 'Prince Albert’s German Secretary and Librarian: Celticist, Enfant Terrible and German Nationalist', Annual Conference and Eighty-Fourth Meeting of the Association for German Studies in Great Britain and Ireland (AGS) Hosted online by Swansea University

Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru 2021, 4 August 2021, Public Lecture: 'Yr Awdures Anghofiedig: Hester Piozzi a Gwleidyddiaeth y 1790au’ (A Forgotten Author: Hester Piozzi and the Politics of the 1790s). Watch it here: https://eisteddfod.wales/amgen-2021-mercher-cymdeithasau-bywgraffiadur

10 July 2021, 'Eisen, Schiefer, Eisenbahnen: Deutsch-walisische Wirtschaftsverbindungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert', Cardiff-Stuttgart Association

17 March 2021, 'Menywod a'r naratifau amdanynt yng Nghymru Oes y Chwyldro Ffrengig (The Female in the Welsh Discourse of the long 1790s)', Coleg Cymraeg Genedlaethol History Conference, https://llyfrgell.porth.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=6018~4p~QgzuunJw

“Curious Kids: How is history written and who writes it?”, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-is-history-written-and-who-writes-it-153502

Eisteddfod Amgen 2020, 7 August 2020, 'Darganfod Olion Iolo Morgannwg: Lle, Gwrthrych a Llên' (Discovering Iolo Morgannwg: Place, Object and Story). Watch at https://eisteddfod.cymru/amgen-llen-darlith7

Eisteddfod Amgen 2020, 14 July 2020, 'Mad Celts'? Menywod Blaengar Mudiad Celtaidd 1899 --c.1910' (Leading Women of the Celtic Movement, 1899- c.1910). Watch at  https://eisteddfod.wales/amgen-marion-loeffler

24 January 2020, 'Sut i droi Almaenes y Dwyrain yn Gymraes', Cymdeithas Cymraeg Porthcawl

8 November 2019, DDR: 'Land of Lost Content'? and conference organiser, 'Berlin Wall Falls 30 Years On: History, Politics and Identities', Cardiff University

5-6 October 2019, 'Cynyddu amrywiaeth a throsgynnu tabŵ yn Y Bywgraffiadur', Women's Archive Wales 22nd Annual Conference at St Fagans

11 September 2019, 'Virgins, Seductresses and Amazons: Englishmen, Welshmen and women at the end of the eighteenth century', Gender in Modern Welsh History Symposium: Rethinking Masculinity and Femininity in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Wales at Cardiff University 

23 July 2019, 'Translation and Politics 1800-1871-1914: The Historian's Tale', The XVIth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Bangor University, Bangor, 

'Wedi Ei Chwipio a Herwgipio: Menywod de Cymru yn Amser Rhyfelodd Napoleon', Noson Pendroni Tafwyl, 17 June 2019

'Executed on Cardiff Heath: Judge Hardinge and the Merthyr Martyrs of 1801', Free Lecture, Cardiff University, 15 May 2019

'Prince Albert, his German Librarian and their Celtic Connection', Dynastie und Kultur, 1719 --2019, Konferenz Schloss Friedenstein und Marburg University, Gotha, 9-11 May 2019

'Lady Llanover's International Friends', Llancaiach Society Annual Conference, Llancaiach, 23 March 2019

Introducing Mallt Williams', #ChampioningHerStory SHARE Cardiff University event celeberating Women's History Month, 15 March 2019

'"La Marseillaise" yng Nghymru, 1848, 1871 a 1914' ['La Marseillaise' in Wales, 1848, 1871 and 1914], Cardiff University presentation, National Eisteddfod of Wales Cardiff, 8 August 2018

'Yr Ustus Hardinge a Merthyron y Waun Ddyfal, 1801' [Judge Hardinge and the Martyrs of the Little Heath, 1801] History Forum Wales Lecture, National Eisteddfod of Wales Cardiff, 6 August 2018

'Y Gododdin, Cyfieithu a Gwleidyddiaeth Oes Victoria' [The Gododdin, Translation and Victorian Politics], Department for Welsh and Celtic Languages, Aberystwyth University, 21 March 2018

'The "good migrant" narrative and three generations of Germans in twentieth-century Wales', Llafur Day School on 'Migration Matters', St Fagans National Museum of History, 18 March 2018

'Trosglwyddo Syniadaeth y Chywldro Ffrengig? "La Marseillaise" yng Nghymru 1795-1915' [The Ideology of the French Revolution? "La Marseillaise" in Wales 1789-1914], Cynhadledd Hanes Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, Carmarthen, 14 February 2018

‘Thomas Stephens a Chymreigyddion y Fenni’, Darlith Cymdeithas Llanofer, Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru Sir Fôn, Bodedeyrn, 9 Awst 2017

‘Merched, Y Bywgraffiadur a Sir Fôn’, Y Lle Hanes, Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru Sir Fôn, Bodedeyrn, 9 Awst 2017

‘Olion Llenyddol Ymwelwyr â Llanofer’, Darlith Goffa Islwyn 2017, Ysgol y Gymraeg Prifysgol Caerdydd, 4 Ebrill 2017

‘Women, Religion and the Dictionary of Welsh Biography’, Ministry and Equilibrium Wales Spring Conferenc 2017, Plas Dolerw, Newtown, 18 March 2017

‘Translating political concepts for a non-state nation: “revolution” in Wales 1775–1815’, Third Conference of the U4 Network of Revolution: Political Upheaval Seen from Afar: Translation and Transformation in the Age of Revolution (1750–1850), University of Göttingen, 23–25 June 2016

‘“This nation” in 1716: considering the first political translation into Welsh’, University of Bangor and Aberystwyth symposium ‘Early Modern Wales: Space, Place and Displacement’, Aberystwyth, 6 July 2016

‘Wörter, Konzepte und Übersetzungen vom Spätmittelalter in die Frühneuzeit’, Marburger Interdisziplinäres Literaturwissenschaftlichen Kolloquium (ILK), Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, 21 January 2016

Committees and reviewing

Member of Board of Directors: The Cyfarthfa Foundation

Committee member: Women's Archive Wales

Member of History Panel Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol

Manuscript reviewer for University of Wales Press, Welsh Books Council, Bloomsbury Publishing, Boydell&Brewer, Welsh History Review, Llafur

Journal reviewer for Welsh History Review, Llafur, The International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, Morgannwg

Assistant Editor Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2014-2022)

Supervisions

Cultural, political and religious history of Wales

Women in Wales c. 1770-1870

Cultural institutions, groups and societies in Wales, such eisteddfod, gorsedd, Cymreigyddion, children's & educational

Conceptual history / Begriffsgeschichte mediated between cultures and languages (by translation)

Connections between Wales and Germany

Wales as cultural nation and subaltern participant in Empire projects

Welsh biography

Celticism as Medievalism

Current supervision

Teleri Owen

Graduate Tutor

Thomas Keegan-Hobbs

Research student

Brian Roper

Research student

Siobhan Hayes

Graduate Tutor

Nicole Burnett

Research student