September 11, 2023
Crosby receives prestigious lifetime appointment to Society of Antiquaries
Mark Crosby, associate professor of English and director of the Digital Humanities Center in the College of Arts and Sciences, has received a prestigious lifetime appointment as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
Founded in 1707, the Society of Antiquaries was granted a Royal Charter in 1751 that limits the number of fellows to around 3,000, all of whom are engaged in humanistic research into the past. Fellows are elected by existing fellows in recognition of demonstrating distinction in their research.
Crosby's election is based on his research on the poet and engraver William Blake and on 18th-century engraving practices.
An international expert in British literary and visual culture, Crosby has published and edited articles and books on William Blake and his patrons. He is also bibliographer and associate editor for the William Blake Archive, the largest and most comprehensive free-to-access digital repository of Blake's works.
Crosby's current research includes the first director of the Society of Antiquaries, Richard Gough, whose mammoth project to record medieval funerary monuments in Britain from the 11th to 15th centuries was illustrated by master engraver James Basire. As Basire's apprentice, Blake made preparatory drawings of the royal tombs and Gothic monuments in Westminster Abbey and Temple Church. Crosby's scholarship examines the intersection of the verbal and visual in Gough's project, showing how Sepulchral Monuments, 1786-1806, traced the complex construction of national and cultural identity as signified by the Gothic funeral monuments from the Norman Conquest to the Tudor dynasty.
"Our thanks to the fellows of the Society of Antiquaries for recognizing Dr. Mark Crosby's significant contributions to the study of literary history, visual culture and the humanities, and our congratulations to Dr. Crosby for receiving this honor," said Karin Westman, department head of English.
More information about Crosby's work is available on Crosby's faculty page.