The Victorians now: global reflections on neo‐Victorianism

Abstract

debates over the relation between neo-Victorianism and more general historical fiction engagements with the nineteenth century were (and remain) an ongoing site of contention; the slippages between the neo-Victorian and neo-nineteenth century are frequent but the chronological collapse of the (long) nineteenth century into 'pure' Victorian classification raises fundamental questions about the attribution of historical attitudes, acts and assimilations that more regularly than not fail to deal explicitly with the inherent complexity of reductionist approaches. Our position in Neo-Victorianism was that to be conceptualised as neo-Victorian, a text had to display a metafictional and metahistorical concern with the process of narrating/re-imagining/ re-visioning histories, and had to be self-conscious about its own position as literary or filmic reconstruction. 1 Since then we have become increasingly alert to the international and global spheres in which the term 'neo-Victorianism' is now deployed, or locations and moments in which, to us, there may be trace elements of potential engagement with the concepts behind neo-Victorianism as a larger global framework for discourses around nostalgia, heritage and cultural memory. This overview essay is not meant to be a comprehensive state-of-the-field account: instead, we want to offer some broad and provocative speculations on the problems of a globalised neo-Victorianism if based purely in textual or filmic reconstructions of the nineteenth century. Using the example of the current international financial crisis and its rebellion points, we want to illustrate how contemporary culture might be susceptible to a different sense of neo-Victorianism going global.

Transnational Neo‐Victorian Studies: Notes on the Possibilities and Limitations of a Discipline

“…Ho's monograph is, to date, the most sustained consideration of the transnational neo‐Victorian, aiming, as she describes, to “complicate[] existing critical work on neo‐Victorianism by exploring its global popularity and [to ask] the … question: what new access to postcolonial experiences is gained when the Victorian goes around the world?” ( Neo‐Victorianism 6). Indeed, Llewellyn and Heilmann themselves reach a very similar conclusion in their 2013 article, “The Victorians Now.” Here they revisit their earlier, narrower definition of the neo‐Victorian precisely because the generic constraints hamper a global view of the phenomenon:

Since [writing the book] we have become increasingly alert to the international and global spheres in which the term ‘neo‐Victorianism’ is now deployed, or locations and moments in which, to us, there may be trace elements of potential engagement with the concepts behind neo‐Victorianism as a larger global framework for discourses around nostalgia, heritage and cultural memory. (24)

They revise their former claims to argue that global neo‐Victorianism “has to be about terminological and epistemological displacement in itself” (28).…”