When I fly into London’s Heathrow airport, I approach UK border patrol with a combination of trepidation and anticipation. I steel myself for the officiousness of the border agent, while I look forward to the world that opens after my passport is stamped. I approach this discussion in a similar fashion. Trained as a historian, …read more
Mary Mullen’s recent piece for V21 ends with the compelling observation that “A form of Victorian Studies grounded in multiple anachronisms interrogates our claims to distance, acknowledges our affective attachments (and their limits), and opens up new political horizons.” Mullen’s mention of “queer temporalities”—thinking of alternative ways to envision linear, normative ideas of about the …read more
Reflecting on Victorian studies in 2005, Matthew Rowlinson argues that the field needs to develop a theory of anachronism. In his words, it “would enable Victorian scholars to explain their investments in their object without proposing to find in that object the truth of the historical present.”[1] According to Rowlinson, Victorian Studies scholars tend to …read more
Lauren Goodlad‘s meditation on digital possibilities at V21 and elsewhere inaugurates a series of longer pieces that we will publish in coming weeks. ** Some readers of this response may recall a 2013 special issue of Victorian Studies, titled The Ends of History. Toward the end of the introduction, Andrew Sartori and I wrote that, looking back at Eve Sedgwick’s …read more
When we initially envisioned V21, our intent was to create a new space for discussion and to catalyze debates about the state of the field. And while Victorian studies is of course a multidisciplinary field, the scholars involved in developing V21 were exclusively trained or housed in English or literary studies. Our manifesto attempts to …read more
V21 invited brief responses to our recently launched collective and manifesto. We thank the scholars who have generously shared their thoughts, and we look forward to the continuing conversation. Stay tuned for the debut of content pieces in the coming weeks. Rae Greiner | David Kurnick | Richard Menke | Priti Joshi | Ryan Fong …read more
V21 invited brief responses to our recently launched collective and manifesto. We thank the scholars who have generously shared their thoughts, and we look forward to posting more responses soon. Kent Puckett | Talia Schaffer | Elaine Freedgood | Daniel Hack | Tyler Dean | Elaine Auyoung | Kathy Psomiades | Kyle McAuley | Jeanette …read more
1. Victorian Studies has fallen prey to positivist historicism: a mode of inquiry that aims to do little more than exhaustively describe, preserve, and display the past. Among its symptoms are a fetishization of the archival; an aspiration to definitively map the DNA of the period; an attempt to reconstruct the past wie es eigentlich …read more
V21 is an open platform for sparking debate and fomenting solidarity; less a destination than a vehicle for driving a bolder field. Join us!