| FT-53201-05 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | Sean C. Grass | Theft and the Commodification of Identity in Victorian Narrative | 6/1/2005 - 7/31/2005 | $5,000.00 | Sean | C. | Grass | | | | Texas Tech University | Lubbock | TX | 79409-0006 | USA | 2005 | British Literature | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 5000 | 0 | 5000 | 0 |
Between 1850 and 1870 in England, autobiography and sensation fiction emerged simultaneously as major sub-genres of narrative prose. But no study has explained why these sub-genres—apparently so different—appealed strongly to Victorian readers, nor whether they share cultural or ideological roots. “Portable Property” will employ the methodologies used by scholars of both sub-genres to make two new arguments about Victorian literature: (1) that the growing mid-century impulse to turn self-narration into a commodity produced deep cultural anxiety about the instability of identity; and (2) that this anxiety produced a new literary form—the Victorian sensation novel—obsessed with the consequences of making identity into “portable property.” |