Category Archives: Victorian literature

Victorian parody: Bulwer

I want to post more regularly about Victorian topics, and thought that the best way to kick it off was with this satirical take from Fraser’s Magazine in 1832 on Edward Bulwer’s Eugene Aram (the end is worth it–how often … Continue reading

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Even art critics need fact checkers; or, how ahead of his time *was* Darwin?

In this morning’s Times, at least in the CT editions, Benjamin Genocchio reviews Endless Forms: Darwin, Natural Science, and the Visual Arts, an exciting show at the Yale Center for British Art.  By way of setting the exhibit up, however, … Continue reading

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Modernists think they’re so great

The 2nd-most irritating thing* about being a Victorianist is having to deal with our modernist colleagues who appear to believe that modernist claims about Victorian culture were simply true, and not at all artifacts of generational conflict or artistic brand-building.   … Continue reading

Posted in Dickens, fictional autobiography, teaching, things that should stop, Victorian literature | 11 Comments

Stanley Fish is irritating, and not in a good way

Today’s Stanley Fish column about academic freedom & fantasies of academic exceptionalism offers a good example of his strengths and his considerable weaknesses as a columnist. For example, I think this is both true and too-infrequently said: But this is … Continue reading

Posted in academic freedom, education, first amendment, higher education, Victorian literature | 3 Comments

NAVSA spring 2007 newsletter

The North American Victorian Studies Association spring 2007 newsletter, which includes the big list of member books, is now up.

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Weird things that are sort of Victorian

These three things are all related to Victorian literature and culture, and are very, very strange. “Experiments in Galvanism: Frog with Implanted Webserver.” When it’s installed at a gallery, museum patrons or internet users can make a dead frog jerk … Continue reading

Posted in Dickens, silliness, Victorian literature | 2 Comments

Collex

At the Academic Commons today, I have a post introducing Collex, a search- and tagging- tool that allows researchers to move seamlessly among most of the major 19th-century digital collections.  Collex is one of the coolest early fruits of Jerome … Continue reading

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Klaver’s _The Apostle of the Flesh: A Critical Life of Charles Kingsley

The new Victorian Studies (Winter 2007), and included in it is my review of J. M. I. Klaver’s The Apostle of the Flesh: A Critical Life of Charles Kingsley (Brill, 2006).  Here’s the first graf: In 1872, Vanity Fair remarked … Continue reading

Posted in elsewhere, Kingsley, self-promotion, Victorian literature | 3 Comments

Dickens on executive privilege

Good to see some things never change.  This from Dickens’s short sketch, “The Election for the Beadle.”  The captain and the overseer lead opposing factions in the local parish; the overseer represents the vested interests, the captain instinctively opposes them: … Continue reading

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