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Instructors: Sabina Fazli
Event type:
online: Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.512
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Registration group: AS 512
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Contents:
The reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) gave the name to a period that saw the apex of British imperialism and influence on the world stage. Many of our contemporary notions about gender, sexuality, race, and class have their roots in the nineteenth century, while the popularity of nineteenth-century literature and its adaptations has disseminated a nostalgic ‘Dickensian’ image of the period.
Neo-Victorianism describes postmodern creative work set in or referring to the 19th century exploring issues of the present through a ‘knowing’ glance at the past. This means that neo-Victorian texts consciously engage not only (and often playfully) with the historical period itself, but also the problem of how we know about and access it, and with present fantasies and desires projected onto it. Typically, neo-Victorian fiction is hence multi-layered, speaking about the past and the present at the same time.
As a postcolonial nation and settler colony, Canada has been crucially shaped by British culture. Today, it is still grappling with its postcolonial identity also in relation to indigenous nations, its internal regional and linguistic division, and the hegemony of US media and popular culture. In this context, Canadian authors have produced fiction that may be categorised as ‘neo-Victorian’ but has largely been overlooked in histories of the genre. In this course we will read examples of anglophone Canadian novels and discuss them in the context of Canada’s ongoing negotiation of a national identity and history as well as renditions of the Victorian past as both culturally distant and close.
Reading:
Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection (1975), no longer in print, buy second hand copy online or borrow from BB Philosophicum.
Jane Urquhart, The Whirlpool (1986)
Bruce Sterling/William Gibson, The Difference Engine (1990)
Harry Karlinsky, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects (2012)
Please purchase your own copies and start reading before classes start.
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