Legacies of Victorian Women’s Fiction: Looking Beyond the 'Neo'

In 1913, Chesterton wrote that Victorian women played an essential role in the development of the novel. Yet this role remains under-theorized, as the bulk of nineteenth-century literature by women—beyond a brief list of texts—has often been viewed in criticism as anomalous or counter-cultural, rather than as a dominant part of our literary heritage. For decades, critics have labored to reintroduce excluded women and minority writers into the Western canon, and this essential recovery work has taken on new life with the opening of digital archives, as scholars unearth evidence of the literary merit and/or cultural significance of many authors now neglected. Yet, by focusing on this ethos of discovery/recovery, we rarely look for connections between the works of different periods, continuities that stem from women’s literary innovations.
This session seeks to address this issue directly, asking: what happened to the most popular themes, tropes, and concerns of Victorian fiction by women after 1901? Where do we see particular formal or narrative elements reemerging or being repurposed? While neo-Victorian criticism celebrates how the nineteenth century is estranged and made new, this session seeks to celebrate the Victorian that never died away, thriving legacies that may surprise us because our attention has been elsewhere. We invite answers based in scholarship that links the Victorian era with modern or contemporary genres outside steampunk, neo-Victorian, or costume drama.

Possible topics include:
- Genres pioneered by women writers
- Key figures in Victorian fiction: the orphan, the fallen woman, the briefless barrister, the adventuress
- City mysteries and urban adventures
- Representations of the working poor then and now- Social problem novels and reform literature
- Professional women and women’s professions
- Victorian gender roles in the present day, such as the angel in the house as “domestic goddess”
-Legacies of supernatural and speculative fiction
- Mystery fiction and crime drama
- Literature for children and young adults that is read by all ages

Submissions are due Sept. 30th, and can be submitted through the conference website https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16456

Please address any questions to Anna Brecke annabrecke@my.uri.edu or Dr. Christiana Salah christiana.salah@uconn.edu