Narrating Empire and Domesticity in Neo-Victorian Fiction: Domestic Elsewheres
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- Synopsis
- Fiction classified as &‘neo-Victorian&’ has steadily emerged as a crucial mode of British cultural production. It is no coincidence that this most recent Victorian renaissance is taking shape in a climate of widespread empire nostalgia, with imperial-colonial legacies being relegated to a distant &‘elsewhere.&’ In its critical re-visitations of the nineteenth century, neo-Victorianism has the potential to intervene in this often selective memory of Britain&’s imperial past. Nevertheless, systematic re-readings of empire have so far played a comparatively minor role in neo-Victorian scholarly debate. This monograph addresses this lacuna by examining how neo-Victorianism negotiates constructions of empire in conjunction with the domestic. Drawing on a range of neo-Victorian novels as well as their Victorian intertexts and bringing these into dialogue with postcolonial theory, it asks how neo-Victorian fiction engages with, perpetuates, or subverts Victorian imaginaries of urban British &‘centres&’ in opposition to remote imperial &‘margins.&’ It examines why domesticity – broadly understood as ideologically charged concepts of family, home, and belonging based on formations of gender, sexuality, and class – can never be constituted independently of empire. In addition, the book raises questions regarding neo-Victorianism&’s larger potentiality of narrating empire, suggesting that it is precisely the disorienting moments that constitute a characteristically neo-Victorian mode of exploring the entanglements of empire and domesticity.
- Copyright:
- 2025
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9783031851711
- Related ISBNs:
- 9783031851704
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature Switzerland
- Date of Addition:
- 05/12/25
- Copyrighted By:
- The Editor
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- History, Literature and Fiction, Language Arts
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.