Victorian materialisms: approaching nineteenth-century matter

Kluwick, Ursula; De Waal, Ariane (2022). Victorian materialisms: approaching nineteenth-century matter. European journal of English studies (EJES), 26(1), pp. 1-13. Routledge 10.1080/13825577.2022.2044143

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In this introduction to the special issue Victorian Materialisms, the authors review the material turn in cultural and literary studies, foregrounding the necessity of more historical nuance. While new materialist accounts tend to stress the post-Enlightenment persistence of dualistic oppositions between nature and culture, humans and nonhumans, body and mind, the editors of this special issue argue that Victorian conceptions of matter reveal a wide range of materialisms that anticipate current new materialist interventions. Closer attention to nineteenth-century cultural, literary, philosophical, and scientific approaches to matter, the authors submit, uncovers not just anxiety about boundary breaches, but a widespread interest in material agency and the entanglement of animal, chemical, human, plant, and inorganic matter. The introduction suggests that a broader enquiry into Victorian materialisms beyond canonical figures and texts helps recuperate the pervasiveness and mundaneness of Victorian engagements with matter and material agency.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures

UniBE Contributor:

Kluwick, Ursula Maria

Subjects:

800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 820 English & Old English literatures
400 Language > 420 English & Old English languages

ISSN:

1382-5577

Publisher:

Routledge

Funders:

[42] Schweizerischer Nationalfonds

Projects:

[UNSPECIFIED] The Beach in the Long Twentieth Century

Language:

English

Submitter:

Ursula Maria Kluwick Kälin

Date Deposited:

05 May 2022 09:23

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:57

Publisher DOI:

10.1080/13825577.2022.2044143

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Materialismus, (new) materialism, Victorian, matter, literature, culture, environmental humanities

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/162490

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