ABSTRACT

This book provides a comprehensive reflection of the processes of canonization, (un)pleasurable consumption and the emerging predominance of topics and theoretical concerns in neo-Victorianism. The repetitions and reiterations of the Victorian in contemporary culture document an unbroken fascination with the histories, technologies and achievements, as well as the injustices and atrocities, of the nineteenth century. They also reveal that, in many ways, contemporary identities are constructed through a Victorian mirror image fabricated by the desires, imaginings and critical interests of the present.

Providing analyses of current negotiations of nineteenth-century texts, discourses and traumas, this volume explores the contemporary commodification and nostalgic recreation of the past. It brings together critical perspectives of experts in the fields of Victorian literature and culture, contemporary literature, and neo-Victorianism, with contributions by leading scholars in the field including Rosario Arias, Cora Kaplan, Elizabeth Ho, Marie-Luise Kohlke and Sally Shuttleworth. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture interrogates current fashions in neo-Victorianism and their ideological leanings, the resurrection of cultural icons, and the reasons behind our relationship with and immersion in Victorian culture.

chapter |18 pages

Introduction

Fashioning the Neo-Victorian—Neo-Victorian Fashions

part |46 pages

Commodifying the Past

chapter |17 pages

Mining the Neo-Victorian Vein

Prospecting for Gold, Buried Treasure and Uncertain Metal

chapter |13 pages

Participatory Desires

On Metalepsis, Immersion and the Re-Plotting of the Victorian

chapter |14 pages

Nostalgia and Material Culture

Present-ing the Past in Cranford

part |43 pages

Resurrecting Cultural Icons

chapter |14 pages

Bio-Fiction

Neo-Victorian Revisions of Evolution and Genetics

chapter |15 pages

Neo-Victorian Gay Fictions

A Critique of Stereotyping and Self-Reflexivity

part |41 pages

Traces, Traumas and Retrospective Anxieties

part |41 pages

Refashioning (Neo-) Victorian Discourses

chapter |16 pages

Coda

The Firm of Charles and Charles—Authorship, Science and Neo-Victorian Masculinities