• Introduction to the Special Issue in Honour of Margaret Beetham
• Gemma Outen (bio) and Andrew Hobbs (bio)

In 2019, Margaret Beetham marked her eightieth year with a celebra-tory research seminar at Manchester Metropolitan University. “Reading Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, with thanks to Margaret Beetham” paid tribute to Margaret’s outstanding contribution to feminist and periodical research and her continuing influence on our ways of reading. Papers by Solveig Robinson and Gemma Outen paid homage to Margaret’s work by developing her ideas, whilst a postgraduate panel made up of Vic Clarke, Tamara Kaminsky, and Catherine Elkin demonstrated her ongoing influence on younger scholars and the longevity of her work. Tributes were also paid by a range of scholars who had worked with and/or been taught by Margaret, and these emphasised her generosity with early-career researchers and students alike, her encouragement of collaboration, and the ways in which conversations with her always lead to a greater understanding of the complexities of texts. The depth and range of praise honours Margaret’s scholarship but also her collaborative, encouraging, and above all, kind nature.

Perhaps the highlight of the day, though, was a paper given by Margaret herself. This reflective piece, entitled “‘Situated Knowledges’: or the Back Door,” thought about her career but also her own home, using the motif of the back door as a literal and metaphorical tool. She considered that she herself had entered through the back door of literary studies, questioning canonical texts and drawing on her own interests in the women’s movement. In a call to arms, she said that she also hoped that women and other scholars entering via the back door would pull up a chair, get down a book, read, and as a result, also disrupt ideas of knowledge and notions of scholarship. These ideas are indicative of Margaret’s history. She entered academia working in a male-dominated polytechnic focused on science and technology, where humanities was fighting for space. She [End Page 471] became part of a movement challenging the ideology of English literature as it was taught in universities at the time, introducing texts outside the traditional canon, cross-disciplinary modes of analysis, the use of literary theory to deconstruct traditional assumptions, and the validation of students’ life experiences. This movement became widespread enough to earn the distinctive soubriquet “Polytechnic English.”

Brian Maidment, her colleague at Manchester Polytechnic (now Manchester Metropolitan University), writes, “It is tempting to heroicise ‘Polytechnic English’ as a major strand in the development of British academic life in the 1980s—anti-authoritarian, progressive, theoretically self-aware and democratising in its reach. But even ignoring this over-simple generalisation, it is important to acknowledge that it produced ground-breaking scholarly work that re-assessed sources that had previously been undervalued or ignored. It also produced individuals who had the scholarly depth, probity, generosity and persistence to become a role model for a new generation, and Margaret Beetham is one of them.”¹

Margaret, like Brian, found a home in RSVP (which is why the society’s journal is the natural place to publish this tribute). Early members of the society, such as Sally Mitchell, Rosemary VanArsdel, Martha Vicinus, and Eugenia Palmegiano, were already challenging the focus on male authors and high-status literary periodicals, providing a supportive intellectual community where Margaret’s work on popular women’s magazines was recognised and valued. Broader ideas of author and text, influenced by structuralism, legitimised research by Margaret and others on journalists and periodical journalism.

What was particularly new in her approach was her use of theory. Her article “Open and Closed: Periodicals as a Publishing Genre” appeared in the first theory issue of VPR (22.3 [1989]) and continues to be cited today. These very productive ideas of open and closed forms are developed in three essays here. Vic Clarke combines open/closed with some of Margaret’s other preoccupations—time, space, and gender—in a meditation on the experience of using digitised periodicals to research the Chartist newspaper the Northern Star. James Mussell uses the part-work Enquire Within to consider how serials regulate their openness with the promise of closure to come, and Julie Codell’s...

• 纪念玛格丽特·贝瑟姆特刊
• 杰玛·欧登（Gemma Outen）（生物）和安德鲁·霍布斯（Andrew Hobbs）（生物）

2019年，玛格丽特·比瑟姆（Margaret Beetham）在曼彻斯特城市大学举办了一次名人故事研究研讨会，以纪念她八十岁。“感谢玛格丽特·贝瑟姆，阅读19世纪期刊”对玛格丽特对女权主义和期刊研究的杰出贡献以及她对我们阅读方式的持续影响表示敬意。Solveig Robinson和Gemma Outen的论文通过发展自己的想法向玛格丽特的工作致敬，而由Vic Clarke，Tamara Kaminsky和Catherine Elkin组成的研究生小组展示了她对年轻学者的持续影响以及她的长寿。与玛格丽特一起工作和/或由玛格丽特教过的许多学者也向他们致以崇高的敬意，这些学者强调了她对早期职业研究人员和学生的慷慨解囊，对合作的鼓励，以及与她交谈的方式总是可以更好地理解文本的复杂性。赞美的深度和广度既是玛格丽特的学术成就，也是她的合作，鼓励，尤其是善良的天性。

不过，也许当天的亮点是玛格丽特本人发表的论文。这张题为“'前提知识'：或后门”的反思性文章将后门的图案用作文字和隐喻工具，不仅考虑了她的职业生涯，还考虑了自己的家。她认为自己是从文学研究的后门进入的，对规范文本提出质疑，并利用自己对妇女运动的兴趣。她在召集武器时说，她还希望通过后门进入的妇女和其他学者能够拉起椅子，放下书本，阅读，从而破坏知识观念和学术观念。这些想法表明了玛格丽特的历史。她进入学术界时，是在一个男性主导的理工学院工作的，该学院专注于科学技术，在这里人类正在为太空而战。[尾页471]成为当时挑战大学英语运动的一部分，挑战英语文学的意识形态，在传统规范之外引入文字，跨学科的分析模式，运用文学理论来解构传统假设，并验证学生的生活经历。这项运动的普及程度足以赢得独特的“技术英语”强化礼。

曼彻斯特工业大学（现为曼彻斯特城市大学）的同事布莱恩·梅德门特（Brian Maidment）写道：“在1980年代，英勇地将'理工英语'英勇化为英国学术生活发展的主要动力-反威权，进步，理论上的自我意识和民主化。但是，即使忽略了这种过分简单的概括，也必须承认它产生了开创性的学术著作，这些著作重新评估了以前被低估或忽略的资源。它还培养了具有学术渊博，诚实，慷慨和毅力的人，成为了新一代的榜样，玛格丽特·比瑟姆就是其中之一。” ^1个

玛格丽特（Margaret）像布莱恩（Brian）一样，在RSVP中找到了家（这就是为什么该协会的期刊是发表此致敬的自然之地）。该协会的早期成员，例如Sally Mitchell，Rosemary VanArsdel，Martha Vicinus和Eugenia Palmegiano，已经挑战了对男性作家和地位很高的文学期刊的关注，提供了一个支持性的知识社区，玛格丽特在大众女性杂志上的著作得到认可和重视。受结构主义影响，作者玛格丽特等人对记者和期刊新闻学的研究合法化，使作者和文本的思想更为广泛。

她的方法特别新颖，是她对理论的运用。她的文章“开放与封闭：期刊作为一种出版体”出现在VPR的第一本理论期刊（22.3 [1989]）中，并在今天继续被引用。这些开放式和封闭式形式的非常有创意的想法在此处的三篇文章中得到阐述。维克·克拉克（Vic Clarke）结合了开/关与玛格丽特其他时间，空间和性别的关注，沉思了使用数字化期刊研究宪章杂志《北星》的经验。詹姆斯·穆塞尔（James Mussell）使用部分作品《问询内部》（Inquire Inside）来考虑连续剧如何通过承诺关闭的方式来规范其公开性，朱莉·卡德尔（Julie Codell）的...