Early Career Fellow 19th-century literature
@LLCatEdinburgh
|
@CN_CSI
|Theological Monsters (UWP), The Roma (Bodley Head/Harper Collins, 2025) | 19thC Gothic
Okay, here’s a long(ish) thread now I’ve had a chance to calm down.
The Roma people are of Northern Indian origin. In Europe, Romas are visibly brown, which is what led to a history of persecution, that started off with 500 years of slavery and led to the Holocaust. (1/)
Today is
#InternationalRomaDay
, a day to celebrate the Roma but also to raise awareness. Here are a few reminders: Roma ≠ Traveller; Roma ≠ Romanian. Gypsy is a slur based on a racialising exonym. Roma are a group of Indian origin, many of whom speak the Romani language. (1/3)
The whole ‘Roma don’t get educated, they hate school. They never graduate even secondary school, they’re barely literate and just want to steal and beg’ discourse is strong on Twitter today. 🙄
Hi! I’m Maddy. I’m Roma, and I have a PhD. And there’s plenty of us.
So, finally, when contemporary discourse in the EU questions whether we have the right to exist, calls us animals, and encourages our extermination, remind me how the Jimmy Carr joke is funny? (15/15)
The English term ‘gypsy’ originated from the misunderstanding that the Roma came from Egypt, an assumption made due to brown skin. Its historical use has been extremely pejorative, and often associated with accusations of crime. (3/)
It’s particularly problematic when used by white people to describe themselves as ‘free-spirited’ and ‘boho’. If a Roma describes themselves as ‘gypsy’ or ‘tsigan’ that’s not a pass for other groups to use it. We have a right to reclaim terms, as many other marginalised (7/)
it was white-on-white violence and erase the continus history of racism the Roma have faced as poc in Europe. And when I say continuous, I mean continuing to this day. Here are some examples: forced sterilisation of Roma women in Slovakia until 2004. (9/)
and facing very similar challenges, difficulties & persecution. Today the Roma are no longer nomadic. And ‘gypsy’, despite it now being used to refer to all nomadic groups, remains originally a term used to other a group because of their skin colour. That’s why it’s a slur. (6/)
But gradually the term took on a life its own. Because the Roma were originally nomadic, it became associated with travelling. Today the British media use traveller/gypsy/Roma interchangeably, but these are different groups despite sharing a history of nomadism, (5/)
All the way through the 19th century, the Roma were sold as slaves, with the price calculated per kg of ‘meat’. This is a poster for a slave auction in Romania. The term ‘tsigan’, generically used in Europe, comes from from medieval Greek tsigganos, and means untouchable. (2/)
groups have done before. Targeted during the Holocaust, as many as 1.5 million by some estimates Roma perished. But this is not widely recognised or spoken about. Because of the confusion regarding the term ‘gypsy’, many, like Whoopi Goldberg, assume (8/)
I am stunned and fascinated and a bit trembling to be holding the first edition of Dracula in front of my eyes, skimming through, and just taking it in. What an incredible experience 🧛♀️🧛♀️🧛♀️
It has also been used as a means of racial othering and exoticising. For example: ‘The true gipsies are readily distinguished by their..jet-black hair, black sparkling eyes, Indian complexions, and their genuine Oriental language.’ (1838). Notice the generic ‘Oriental’, etc. (4/)
In Greece last year, an 8-year-old Roma girl named Olga was crushed to death by revolving doors as people watched indifferently and nobody intervened. In 2021, a Romani man in the Czech Republic was killed by a police kneeling on his neck and compressing it (10/)
In 2013, Gilles Bourdouleix, member of National Assembly, France, said ‘Maybe Hitler didn’t kill enough of them.’ Riccardo De Corato, deputy vice mayor of Milan, Italy, in 2010: ‘These are dark-skinned people, not Europeans like you and me’ (11/)
Happy
#InternationalRomaDay
! On this day I want to celebrate Romani culture and history. Did you know that the Romani flag contains a dharmachakra to pay tribute to India, where the Roma originated from, and also to the traditionally nomadic lifestyle? (1/)
Zsolt Bayer, co-founder of the Fidesz Party, Hungary, 2013: ‘A significant part of the Roma are unfit for coexistence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals, and they behave like animals. When they meet with resistance, they commit murder.’ (12/)
(cont) ‘They are incapable of human communication. Inarticulate sounds pour out of their bestial skulls. At the same time, these Gypsies understand how to exploit the 'achievements' of the idiotic Western world. But one must retaliate rather than tolerate.’ (13/)
A 16-year-old Romani boy was shot by police in Greece. He is in critical condition in hospital. Police violence across Europe disproportionately affects Romani communities. (1/)
If you’re a Roma artist, academic, creative, activist, etc, please feel free to add to this thread to showcase your work. If you know someone else who is, also please share it. I want to create a little space to amplify other Roma voices. Opre Roma (3/3).
I am enormously thankful and overwhelmed by the response this thread has got. I apologise that I’m not able to respond to every comment due to sheer volume. I’m very thankful for all your support. To answer a question that many have asked: the painting is by Konstanty Mańkowski.
Thank you everyone for the support re the Roma thread! I’m overwhelmed by this. New followers from the thread: welcome and thank you! You might be disappointed by my usual tweets, about my academic work on Irish gothic lit + theology, vampires, and general 19th century stuff 😅
In the last couple of days I’ve seen, again, lots of talk on here about the Roma Holocaust (Porajmos), & again lots of careless terminology and confusion equating Roma with Traveller. So I’m doing a little thread again addressing some common questions. So, who are the Roma? (1/)
Despite the common misconception, however, Roma ≠ Traveller, and some Romani groups have been settled for centuries. And although the Roma have and continue to suffer vile racism & discrimination, I want today to be about joy and to celebrate & amplify Romani voices (2/)
Now that the contract is signed, I am thrilled to announce that for the next three years I will be joining the wonderful English department at the University of Edinburgh as a Teaching & Research Fellow in the Nineteenth Century (Romanticism & Victorianism).
Final thing I’ll say about the ‘low value’ degrees thing: it’s not about ‘value’, but about restricting the development of critical thought for political gain. Sunak said it himself that he would get tough on universities because they’re ‘full of people who don’t vote Tory’ (1/)
So I’m creating this space and inviting fellow Roma to share and celebrate things that you value about our history and culture, share your achievements, and celebrate our communities. Opre Roma 💙☸️💚 (3/3)
This case breaks me. The Roma are vulnerable to medical violence, especially obstetric violence. Racist discourse about Romani people having lots of children ‘for benefits’, etc contributes to disdain for Roma needing obstetric care, and Romani babies’ lives being viewed as cheap
SERBIA: BABY DIES AFTER SHOCKING INCIDENT OF OBSTETRIC RACISM
Roma mother’s ribs broken, baby dies after violent assault by doctor—doctor hurled racial slurs
I’m teaching Coleridge this week, so I’m taking that as a full pass at indulging my Ancient Mariner obsession. So here’s a thread of some of my favourite things and thoughts about the Rime, both academic and more personal/subjective, starting with the gorgeous Doré illustrations.
My least favourite part of Halloween is seeing all the ‘Gypsy’ costumes pop up again. Traditional Romani clothing (as in this photo) is not merely fashion: there is symbolism and cultural weight behind it, and it’s saddening to see it disrespected year after year.
@Krodhika
Thanks Mini. No, Romania doesn’t come from Roma but from the Romanian population, native to the land and speaking Romanian. So coincidentally the terms sounds similar. But yes, there is a significant Roma minority living in Romania.
The trope of the ‘Gypsy’ in literature (particularly Gothic) is extremely widespread and extremely harmful. It is also rarely talked about and challenged in literary criticism; rarely touched upon in university curricula. And it stems from a lack of understanding & representation
I am Roma, originally from Romania. The concept of slurs absolutely exists in Eastern Europe; the stuff I’ve been called, deliberately, maliciously. & it’s not just THE word, ‘țigan/că’, but others too, that everyone understands as slurs. And slurs exist for other groups, too.
So, I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that my monograph, ‘Theological Monsters: Religion and Irish Gothic’, will be published by University of Wales Press, and included in their wonderful Gothic Literary Studies Series.
I hope the AHRC fund a project on anti-intellectualism and its historical links to political propaganda, the far-right, and the deliberate erosion of critical thought by totalitarian regimes. 👀
Today is
#RomaniResistanceDay
- we mark the anniversary of when Romani prisoners in the ‘zigeunlager’ at Auschwitz-Birkenau stood up and fought against the Nazi’s. They barricaded themselves in barracks and defended themselves with improvised weapons ✊🏽
I’m thrilled, and still somewhat dazed, as I make this announcement: my book, ‘The Roma’, a history with elements of memoir, has found a home with Penguin’s The Bodley Head. Thank you to my agent,
@mfredturner
, who has gently and patiently helped me breathe life into it.
"She weaves the past, present and the personal together into a captivating travelling history of a people.”
@TheBodleyHead
has won
@madeline_cct
’s The Roma: A Travelling History in a 14-publisher auction.
Read here:
I feel sick to my stomach and close to tears because of the Jimmy Carr joke. Apparently my people’s genocide during the Holocaust ‘was a positive’. He wouldn’t have dared make this joke about any other group, but racism against the Roma is still acceptable, clearly. I am shaking
Seeing some tweets unironically celebrating Italy’s ‘first female prime minister’: this exposes some of the ways in which white feminism upholds extremism. It’s frightening. Thinking today especially of the Roma in Italy, alongside all other marginalised, vulnerable groups.
👇 To be a ‘Gypsy’ comes with the legacies of 500 years of chattel slavery; with systemic racism, police brutality, segregation, forced sterilisation, genocide; with often strict practices and traditions, not the ideal of ‘free-spiritedness’ that non-Roma have fetishised (1/)
Romani people are not your costume.
You do not have a Gypsy Soul.
We aren’t an aesthetic.
We are real people, enduring real prejudice & discrimination.
You can take off the costume when it’s inconvenient. We cant.
Please stop calling yourself a Gypsy if you aren’t.
It’s funny that some people are still having cognitive dissonance over the fact that I can be Roma and have a PhD, as if an educated Roma was somehow impossible, unnatural, incomprehensible. Quite telling.
Also in Greece, another Romani youth, Nikos, was shot and killed in 2021. Earlier this year in Romania, a Romani woman was beaten by a bus driver who refused her access because she was Roma; she was called a racial slur by the emergency line operator & fined by police(2/)
Yellow warning for high winds? It’ll just make the Romani flags fly higher. Had a wonderful time at the
#InternationalRomaDay
parade in Glasgow’s Govanhill today. Opre Roma 💚❤️💙
The first attestation of ‘Romanian’ dates back to 1521, whereas ‘Roma’ goes back to Sanskrit, from which the Romani language derived. Racism is a shorthand which stops actual historical and linguistic study and understanding.
I am once again using this platform to highlight police brutality against the Roma across Europe. Yet so many of these cases are only ever reported by Roma organisations, and rarely get any press coverage. There is no uproar, no indignation.
Mother & sister of Romani man beaten to death by Arad police
#Romania
file criminal complaint. Legal backing from RomaJust & ERRC, funded by the EU. Details
To chime in on content warnings/notes: students have explicitly told me they valued being told beforehand of the difficult nature of some of the texts studied (especially true of Gothic lit). They’ve also always read the texts and engaged with them with critical maturity (1/)
There are many cases of police violence targeted at the Roma across continental Europe - and beyond. These are just a few. But they gather little attention generally; (3/)
We marched at the weekend, but today is
#InternationalRomaDay
! We celebrate Romani culture, and Romani individuals; the Romani language; Romani traditions. I hope this day to bring more visibility to the Roma, our struggles, and our resistance. I hope for dialogue. Open Roma!
Today is Roma Holocaust Memorial Day. The genocide of the Roma during WW2 is known as the Porrajmos or the Samurdipen. Estimates of how many Roma and Sinti perished during those times vary, but according to some sources are as high as 1.5 million. 🙏
👇 did you know, that people like the ones in the photos here, get classified as ‘White’ in the UK and excluded from EDI initiatives aimed at to help PoC. Because it is easier to dismiss the racism the Roma face then? (1/)
📷 Cinzia D'Ambrosi / Nigel Dickinson
#WyrdWednesday
In some Welsh myths, the corpse bird, Aderyn y corph, is heard screeching outside the door of those about to die. It is believed to live in the otherworld, and cross our plane only to sound its deathly call; but many think it refers to the screech owl.
#WyrdWednesday
Absinthe, known as the ‘green fairy’ for its hallucinogenic effects, become popular during the 19th century: many writers saw it as a muse. Wilde wrote that after enough absinthe ‘you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.’
#WyrdWednesday
In 1887, Lady Wilde wrote about Irish Midsummer traditions. Gathered on the promontory of Howth, people would spot the first lit bonfire & break into ‘wild cries’ echoed widely as ‘all the local fires began to blaze, and Ireland was circled by a cordon of flame’
Bram Stoker was born
#OTD
in 1847 in Clontarf, Dublin. He’s the author of the famous vampire novel, Dracula, first published in 1897, & which has never gone out of print. Here’s the cover of the somewhat tawdry but famous first edition. What’s your favourite thing about Dracula?
Jonathan Harker’s first diary entry in Dracula is dated 3 May — and so the story begins
#OTD
in Transylvania. Harker is plagued by strange dreams and kept away by sinister howls, in a narrative anticipation of darker things to come, as he heads onwards to Castle Dracula.
#FaustianFriday
In Irish lore, the Cóiste Bodhar, or silent coach, is a deathly horse-drawn carriage which fares between this world and the realm of dead, to which it can never return empty. It is therefore a harbinger of imminent doom. The myth influenced JS Le Fanu’s Carmilla.
@BrendaK80530584
Thank you! Yes, it’s not spoken about or known and there’s a lot of confusion. Much solidarity to your son and to you for understanding the struggle
Did you know that many Ukrainian Roma refugees were denied help in neighbouring countries for being visibly Roma? That in the Romanian dictionary the definition for Roma contained the words ‘blackish’ & ‘bad behaviour’ until recently? Roma face particular issues (1/)
#WyrdWednesday
In Stoker’s Dracula, Mina breaks many conventions, using the tools of modern science & technology to fight the vampire. She is the one who bids Van Helsing to use hypnosis on her, perceiving that it can help locate the Count through their psychic connection.
We cannot have coherent and efficient policies of socioeconomic inclusion if at most levels of society there is little understanding of who the Roma are - of who we are. (11/11)
#WyrdWednesday
In Arthur Machen’s novella ‘The Great God Pan’, a doctor performs experimental brain surgery on his patient, Mary, inducing a spiritual experience described as ‘seeing the great god Pan’, and which instantiates a monstrous. reversal of the Incarnation.
#WyrdWednesday
In Dracula, after her death, Lucy is seen haunting the area around Hampstead Heath, luring children. Accounts speak of a ‘Bloofer Lady’. She is now a vampire, stalking the night as if in a trance. ‘In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead’, Van Helsing says
@JLorna1813
The Roma never had land. They were nomadic and never claimed land: came from India and were enslaved in Europe because of their dark complexion and being different. It is very much to this day a colour problem — in Romania offensive terms for the Roma refer to skin colour
Vinegar Valentines were popular in the Victorian era: these were cynical, cheeky, and sarcastic cards, often accompanied by an insulting poem. They sometimes featured reptiles as metaphors for sneaky people, unsuitable for courtship, such as this example from roughly 1870.
Simply, the Roma are a South Asian diasporic group originating from northern India and originally nomadic. Because they were nomadic, the Roma are heterogenous — there are many subgroups of the Roma (2/)
For example, neighbouring countries discriminated against visibly Romani refugees from Ukraine. Why does all this matter? The Roma continue to face racism, marginalisation, homelessness, and poverty (10/)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published
#OTD
in 1897. Since then, it’s never gone out of print, and it’s been crucial in shaping many of the vampire tropes we know and love today. Here’s a photo of the first edition. What’s your favourite thing about Dracula?
Tomorrow morning, dropping sweet boy Campsy at the vet for his scheduled surgery. Dear Twitter friends, please keep him in your thoughts, prayers, and well wishes 🙏
Anti-Romani racism in the USA 👇 they’ve taken the time to translate it into Romanian as well, using a term that’s derived from ‘untouchable’. And the ‘long shoplifting skirts’!? The skirts are a long cultural tradition. And if white women wear ‘boho’ skirts it’s quirky and fun..
These are “No g*psy” signs outside multiple
#Chevron
gas stations in Los Angeles county. This is illegal discrimination, the Romanian portion of the sign literally says “not a single gypsy.” These are literal racial slurs being posted on stores promoting 1950s style segregation.
The discourse surrounding the casting of Esmeralda again highlights just how much confusion there exists about who the Roma actually are. This is why representation matters, and it’s been stripped away from us. The Roma are a racial-ethnic group of Northern Indian origin. (1/)
#FaustianFriday
Absinthe, nicknamed ‘the green fairy’ for its purported hallucinogenic effects, was seen as a muse for many writers & artists in the 19th century. Wilde said that after absinthe ‘you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.’
Are the Roma white? No. The Roma aren’t racialised as white. Because the Roma are a heterogeneous population, light skinned, mixed and white-passing Roma exist of course. They still suffer from racism, too. Importantly, Afro-Romani communities exist. (8/)
Bram Stoker died
#otd
in 1912. He is best known for his 1897 novel, Dracula, which, 126 years later, is still a cultural force. What do you most enjoy about Stoker’s novel?
@Barb_Drummond
@HistoryToday
Thanks! Yes, I’d seen this and thought it’s great that it’s starting to be talked about, and then the ‘joke’ night came and it was deeply upsetting
And overall, the majority of Roma worldwide are not white-passing and appear, broadly, ‘brown’. This means that across Europe the Roma are a visible minority and that impacts their marginalisation. (9/)
Are the Roma still nomadic? Some are. Many - most - aren’t, especially on the continent. Some groups have been settled for centuries due to chattel enslavement on the territory of present-day Romania. But nomadism is part of our cultural memory and variously our identity (6/)
‘It’s a joke ffs’; ‘pikey’; ‘ppl don’t hate you because you’re Roma, they hate you because of how you lot behave’; ‘gypsies are a plague really’; ‘gypsies are dangerous’; These are just SOME of the comments I’ve had to deal with, just to give you a glimpse of what it’s been like.
What’s the difference between Roma and Romani? Simply put, there isn’t one. Roma is a plural noun and Romani is an adjective. Different groups prefer one over the other in terms of self-identification, but essentially the terms are variations of the same word. (3/)
Is it a slur? It depends who you ask. Some reclaim it, some revile it. Personally, I think the issue is that it’s become a catch-all phrase for any group with a history of nomadism, and we need to address what we mean by it before we can have these conversations. (5/)
Since there is discourse surrounding the Roma Holocaust on Twitter today: 1) estimated numbers of victims are as high as 1.5 million according to recent data 2) terminology is important: the Roma & Sinti were targeted and persecuted racially - this was not about nomadism.
#WyrdWednesday
Hearing wolves howling hauntingly in the deep Transylvanian forest, Count Dracula likens their wailing to song, much to Jonathan Harker’s horror: ‘Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!’ (Bram Stoker, ‘Dracula’)
🖼 Abigail Larson
What is Romanes? Romanes is the name of the Romani language in the language itself. It’s an Indo-Aryan language, related to Hindi. It’s still spoken today, and numerous dialects exists (7/)
Today is
#RomaniResistanceDay
, marking the anniversary of when Romani prisoners in the ‘Zigeunerlager’ at Auschwitz-Birkenau, in an act of resistance against the Nazis, barricaded themselves in their barracks and defended themselves with improvised weapons.
The memorial to the Roma & Sinti victims of National Socialism has come under threat: Deutsche Bahn is putting pressure on the Berlin Senate for a new train line directly under the memorial. Please sign this open letter for its preservation & share widely