Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles) ISSN (Print) 1355-5502 - ISSN (Online) 1750-0133 Published by Oxford University Press[425 journals]
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 287 - 301 Abstract: AbstractWhile the term ‘alienation’ is frequently mentioned in criticism of sensation fiction, there is a lack of a stringent definition of this term. This article aims to address this gap with a focused examination of the depiction of alienation in three sensation novels, Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) by M. E. Braddon, East Lynne (1861) by Mrs Henry Wood, and Basil (1852) by Wilkie Collins. Borrowing a critical framework from contemporary philosopher Rahel Jaeggi, the article sees alienation as an obstructed relation of ‘appropriation’. According to Jaeggi, to appropriate is, briefly, to take oneself and one’s world at one’s own command. The relation of appropriation bespeaks a more profound relationship between the self and the world than ownership. Previous studies of sensation heroines often associate their alienation with their desires for material property. With Jaeggi’s critical framework, however, this article moves forward by identifying a parallel between the heroines’ troubled desires for material possessions and their problematic relationships in life. Through a Jaeggian lens, all three texts illustrate the heroines’ dispossession of the self and dispossession of property as profoundly, even structurally, linked. A Jaeggian reading of the novels also provides new insights into the genre’s ideological function, particularly in relation to the limited social roles and precarious hold on the material world faced by ambitious Victorian women. PubDate: Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcad043 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2024)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 302 - 317 Abstract: AbstractThis essay traces chronologically Elizabeth Gaskell’s reception in mainland China from 1916 to the present day. It focuses on the ways in which Chinese translations and studies of Gaskell are governed by China’s changing socio-political and cultural concerns. The translation of Gaskell was motivated by cultural reasons in Republican China and by political ones in Maoist China. In the former period, Gaskell’s work was considered useful for the creation of a new, modern Chinese literature, while in the latter period, it was seen as conducive to China’s socialist revolution and education. In the post-Mao era, cultural and commercial considerations have come to dominate Gaskell translation. Serious Chinese Gaskell scholarship emerged as part of the critical effort to reaffirm the historical significance of nineteenth-century European realism in the late 1970s. Since then, Chinese criticism of Gaskell has developed from an initial period dominated by Marxist critical approaches through a formative period marked by feminist approaches to a flourishing period featuring diverse critical approaches. The study of Chinese Gaskell would contribute to the global awareness of foreign Gaskells. PubDate: Sat, 27 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcae002 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2024)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 318 - 336 Abstract: AbstractIn this essay, I extend the existing scholarship on the character of Bertha Mason Rochester by providing historical and textual evidence that Brontë represents Bertha’s ethnocultural background as an amalgam of Jamaican, Jewish, and Creole. In support of this thesis, I examine passages focusing on Bertha’s father and brother, and I describe the cultural meanings of Spanish Town (Jamaica) and Madeira (Portugal) with regard to Caribbean Jewish creole communities in the nineteenth century and their complex ties to England and the Continent. In contrast to previous claims (e.g. Heidi Kaufman’s), I argue that Brontë imbues Bertha with a literal (vs merely symbolic) Jewish lineage. Also, I consider Brontë’s portrayal of Bertha in relation to gender-specific tropes about Jews, which were familiar to Brontë and her Victorian readers. Furthermore, I discuss the sociopolitical zeitgeist during Brontë’s formative years and in the period in which she wrote Jane Eyre, with an emphasis on the pervasive attempts to evangelize England’s Jews and the vigorous debates about whether to grant Jews political rights in England. Additionally, I examine the phrase ‘stiff-necked’ as it is used in the novel and in the King James Bible, positing that it signifies an unwillingness to change. On the basis of these various forms of evidence, I argue that Brontë’s construction of Bertha as having hybridized Jewish origins helps make her an embodiment of radical otherness and stagnation. In this conceptual framework, the polarity between the ability versus inability to grow emerges as a core theme within the novel. PubDate: Tue, 30 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcae001 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2024)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 340 - 341 Abstract: Elodie Duché is Senior Lecturer in History at York St John University (United Kingdom). Her research focuses on transnational encounters and travel writing in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a particular emphasis on France and Britain and their respective colonies. She has published on various aspects of experiences of war captivity during the period, including a study of charity networks for British prisoners of war secluded in Napoleonic France, and works on life-writing, gender and race in detention. She is currently at work on a transnational history of entomophagy and is the co-founder with Franziska Neumann at Technische Universität Braunschweig (Germany) of an interdisciplinary research network entitled ‘Ugh! Disgust, Repugnant Matters and the Construction of Difference, c.1700–1900’, which gathers 18 scholars in the field, from Hong Kong to New York. PubDate: Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcae011 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2024)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 185 - 207 Abstract: AbstractEntomologists and proponents of insect food have often seen in Vincent M. Holt’s Why Not Eat Insects' (London: Field & Tuer, 1885) the work of a precursor. Holt’s plea to consume insects in Victorian Britain, as an aid to address food poverty and diversify Western diets, certainly resonates with the environmental and social predicaments of the twenty-first century. However, the text and the context of this publication have not been fully examined. The book has attracted comparatively little attention from historians who are yet to unravel why and how Holt could raise the very question ‘why not'’ This article aims to bridge this gap, with a close reading of the sources and the language deployed by Holt, who heavily relies on European travel writings to make his case. Relocating Why Not Eat Insects' in this context throws into relief how issues of class and colonialism were constitutive of a wider discussion about eating insects in English-speaking prints in the nineteenth century. To explore this, the article also investigates responses from readers in the 1880s and 1890s, through reviews published in the British Isles, Australia, and the United States. Ultimately, examining these aspects alerts us to the dangers of celebrating Holt as a pioneer of insect food and an inspiration for the twenty-first century, for Holt partook in what Lisa Heldke terms ‘cultural food colonialism’, which we are at risk of reproducing when using his text uncritically and without regard to its social and colonial context. PubDate: Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcad022 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2023)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 225 - 243 Abstract: AbstractThis article builds upon Bernard Lightman and Peter Bowler’s works on the non-Darwinian nature of Victorian evolution, arguing that while their arguments helpfully reorient our understanding of evolution’s historiography, they underestimate the diversity of evolutionary theory in the Victorian era. Victorian evolution was highly idiosyncratic, as each individual (scientist, author, or reader) interpreted evolution according to his or her own preconceptions, resulting in a myriad of evolutionary theories. To illustrate this diversity, this article examines the work of Andrew Lang, a prolific late-nineteenth-century journalist, anthropologist, and fairy-tale enthusiast. I focus on two of his largely unstudied works to demonstrate how he exposed and critiqued Victorian assumptions about evolution and the origins of the theory. The first work, ‘Higgins, the Inventor of Evolution’ (1897), uses satire to reveal that evolution’s theoretical history was often overlooked in the nineteenth century. The second, The Princess Nobody (1884), is a children’s fairy tale that exemplifies how fairy-tale tropes can help modern readers grasp evolutionary ideas. Significantly, both works recycle older texts that also address evolutionary questions, making Lang a participant in a folkloric tradition of interpreting and critiquing evolutionary theory. Lang viewed evolutionary theory as similar to a mythic story that is told and reinterpreted through the generations. His writing demonstrates that the origins of evolutionary theory are ambiguous, and that traditional fairy tales convey ideas about human origins and kinship with animals that predate Darwin’s studies. PubDate: Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcad041 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2023)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 244 - 265 Abstract: AbstractIn recent years, there has been considerable interest in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural practice of Britons wearing indigenous dress, as well as debate as to what motivated people to re-fashion their identity in such radical ways. Typically, these practices have been viewed either as acts of cultural appropriation, or occasionally as acts of solidarity with other cultures. This article focuses on one individual, the antiquarian Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797–1875), who wore Turkish dress whilst in Egypt, and was depicted wearing the same dress by the portrait artist Henry Wyndham Phillips, in 1843/44. Despite being reproduced in countless histories of Egyptology, archaeology and beyond, there currently exists no sustained critical analysis of Wilkinson’s relationship with this costume. I contend that Wilkinson’s choice of Turkish dress and his engagement with such clothing was both sustained and complicated. It reflected simple practicalities, but also an awareness of socio-political conditions in Egypt which were inadequately understood at an official level, due to high-handed expectations about how Britons should and should not behave, to bolster Britain’s national image abroad. At the same time, the same clothing could be interpreted differently by other audiences, and Phillips’s painting of Wilkinson – the components of which are identified for the first time – emerges as an attempt at self-fashioning on Wilkinson’s part, to cement his recently acquired status as a recognized authority about ancient Egypt. These concerns are applicable to other western scholars and travellers active in the Near East in the early nineteenth century. PubDate: Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcad019 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2023)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 266 - 286 Abstract: AbstractAmelia B. Edwards (1831–1892) was renowned for her profound mastery of Egyptology, possessing a knowledge some said surpassed that of her male counterparts. Her archaeological endeavours in Egypt merged with a vivid narrative approach, evident in seminal works such as A Thousand Miles up the Nile (1877) and her captivating lectures across Britain and America. This harmonious blend of meticulous observation and romantic aesthetics not only carved her niche as a distinguished Egyptologist, but also heralded her as a forerunner in public history, adept at fusing erudite exploration with charming storytelling. Set against the tapestry of the Romantic era, Edwards forged a distinctive narrative, eschewing traditional academic boundaries to imbue her writings with heartfelt sentiment. This article delves into Edwards’ impact on Egyptology’s popularization: from her pivotal 1873 Egyptian sojourn, followed by her compelling lectures, to her personally curated Egyptian collection at home. With an adept fusion of artistic verve and academic rigour, Edwards bridged literature and archaeology. Her legacy signifies a refreshing deviation from orthodox methodologies, presenting a more immersive perspective on ancient Egypt. In stark contrast to the staid styles of her contemporary archaeological peers, she proclaimed herself the only romancer also versed in Egyptology, ardently championing a scientific discourse with broader appeal. PubDate: Sat, 11 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcad040 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2023)
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Pages: 337 - 339 Abstract: The Radical Vision of Edward Burne-Jones: by Andrea WolkRager, New Haven and London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art with Yale University Press, 2022, xii + 332 pp., illustrated, £45 (hardback), ISBN 9781913107277 PubDate: Wed, 09 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jvcult/vcac078 Issue No:Vol. 29, No. 2 (2022)
Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
