By Kimberly Robinson, The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith The rise of the asylum is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, and, in the absence of facts, the Romantics obsessed over wrongful institutionalization, but the bureaucracy that handled the treatment of the insane is more tangible than most people might expect. Culturally speaking, the Romantics … Read more
In this guest post, Professor Roger Ebbatson talks about his new study of landscape in literature of the period 1830-1914, and sketches out some of the key links between people and their environment in this pivotal period in British history. In examining the ‘spaces’ of literary production in the nineteenth century my new book, Landscape … Read more
By Patrick Smith, Bainbridge State College, Georgia Writers have drawn on vivid descriptions of the visual arts to enhance their work since Homer famously used 130 lines to describe the chronicle emblazoned on Achilles’s shield in Book 18 of Homer’s Iliad more than 2,500 years ago. Ekphrasis—the representation in language of a work of art—acts … Read more
By Professor Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter Note: This paper was presented at the State of the Field Plenary panel that opened the joint AVSA/BAVS/NAVSA (Australasian Victorian Studies Association; British Association for Victorian Studies; North American Victorian Studies Association) international conference ‘The Global and the Local’ at the Ca’Foscari University of Venice and Venice International … Read more
By Dr Alistair Brown, Durham University To ask “Are video games literature?” seems a pointless kind of question, like pondering whether a film is the same thing as a poem, or whether a Rembrandt painting tastes like cheese. Yet asking this question is a necessary provocation, because it helps us to think about how and … Read more