Sensational realism? Jane Eyre and the problem of genre

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below.This article explores the issue of Jane Eyre and genre, examining the novel's relationship to a multitude of literary genres, including gothic, realist, fairytale, bildungsroman, and sensation. Critical assessments of Brontë's novel have tended to explore the text's relationships with these various forms of fiction in isolation, focusing, for example, on the narrative's gothic tropes, or its relationship with the Victorian realist novel. This article seeks to explore the tensions inherent in the text's relationship to these differing, often contradictory genres: to what extent are the realist elements of the text undermined by the narrative's reliance on supernatural, sensational, and distinctly unrealistic occurrences? At the heart of this tension is arguably a conflict between high-brow and low-brow literature. How, if at all, does the narrative negotiate and resolve these tensions? In particular, I posit that Brontë's novel can be read as a forerunner to the sensation novel - a form which became popular in the 1860s, and which is marked by a combination of realism and sensationalism. A number of sensation novels, including Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862) - one of the defining texts of the genre - are directly influenced by Jane Eyre, reworking elements of Brontë's narrative (in particular the bigamy plot, and the character of the mad wife). In light of the conflicting aspects of Brontë's novel, I question how useful it is to attempt to pigeonhole the text within a specific literary genre, and to what extent this may in fact limit our reading and understanding of the narrative. I seek to ascertain the extent to which the conflicting elements of Brontë's novel are ultimately resolved, or whether the narrative as a whole is undermined by these contrasting features. In exploring Jane Eyre from this perspective, I seek to highlight not only the diversity of Victorian fiction, but also the problematic nature of genre itself, the boundaries of which, as Brontë's narrative illustrates, are fluid, blurred, and at times imperceptible

"A touch of in'nard fever": Illness and moral decline in 'Elster's Folly'

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 Taylor & Francis.The important relationship between illness and morality in the fiction of Mrs Henry Wood looms large in her 1866 novel Elster's Folly. This article argues that Wood's apparently conservative sensationalism, suggested by the presence of a moralizing narrator in many of her works, as well as by the conclusions to her novels, in which order is almost inevitably restored, in fact conceals a more subversive element in her fiction. In Elster's Folly, transgression, and specifically sexual transgression, is figured as contagious (a common ploy in Victorian fiction), and a superficial reading would seem to reinforce the notion of Wood as a conservative sensation writer: a number of characters whose morality is in question fall ill and die, while moral health is clearly linked to physical health through Wood's portrayal of the Countess Dowager, an immoral woman who suffers from an obsessive phobia of illness. However, the conclusion of the novel undermines this reading: the illegitimate daughter, unlike the illegitimate son, is not only permitted to live, but also retains the title to which she is not, in fact, legally entitled. In this way, Wood subtly undermines conventional Victorian morality through her representation of sin, illness and the family

Gender, conflict, continuity: Anne Brontë's 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' (1848) and Sarah Grand's 'The Heavenly Twins' (1893)

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 W. S. Maney & Son Ltd.The New Woman fiction of the fin de siècle brought into conflict patriarchal and feminist ideologies, challenging widely held assumptions about gender roles and the position of women. Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins is an important contribution to the genre, and engages with a number of the key issues that concerned feminists at the end of the nineteenth century, including marriage, the education of women, the double standard, male licentiousness, and the wider issue of social purity. These are also key themes in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — published nearly fifty years before Grand's seminal New Woman text. In this essay, I consider Anne Brontë's text as a forerunner to the New Woman fiction of the fin de siècle, through a comparative examination of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and The Heavenly Twins

Introduction to adapting the nineteenth century: Revisiting, revising and rewriting the past

Copyright @ 2010 Neo-Victorian Studies. This is an open access journal. The journal's open access policy is restricted to educational and non-commercial use in accordance with Creative Commons: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license.No abstract available

Archivists and Historians: A View from the United States

Considers the debate about the relationship of history and archives and archivists by examining the mission of the archival profession, the nature of archival theory and knowledge, and, as a case study, the career of Lester J. Cappon (1900-1981) as both historian and archivist

On the Value of Archival History in the United States

Although there is increasing interest in American archival history, there has been no precise definition of its value. This essay is an effort to provide such a definition, arguing that the study of archival history is important for the following reasons: it addresses contemporary concerns of and issues facing the archival profession; it is an important tool to be used in self-evaluation and planning by archival programs; it can be used to develop a body of case studies that could facilitate a better understanding of the life cycle of cultural institutions such as archives; it is an excellent means of introduction for graduate students preparing to be archivists; it is a gateway through which to examine some fundamental questions about the nature of records and information; and the study of archival history provides an outlet for the scholarly interests of individual archivists

Assessing iSchools

Over the past decade, iSchools have emerged to educate the next generation of information professionals and scholars. Claiming to be edgy and innovative, how can and should these schools function in the spirit of assessment that now drives so much in the university? This essay, which explores how well we can assess iSchools, emerged from a doctoral seminar. Academic Culture and Practice, taught by Richard Cox and including four doctoral student participants and the Dean of School of Information Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Ronald Larsen. The doctoral students, among other activities, were required to work on assignments to support a self-study for the University of Pittsburgh's reaccreditation by the Middle States Association. As we proceeded through the course, we found ourselves increasingly drawn to questions about how iSchools, in their nascent state, can assess themselves. Four major areas—reputation, evaluating productivity in scholarly publishing, student evaluation of teaching, and student satisfaction with their academic programs—that emerged based on student interest as the seminar proceeded are discussed

Teaching Advocacy

This essay discusses the use and value of case studies in teaching students about archival advocacy. It also considers why and how educators need to rethink how advocacy fits into the curriculum and how students can produce case studies

Technology’s Promise, the Copying of Records, and the Archivist’s Challenge: A Case Study in Documentation Rhetoric

Discussion of implications of electrostatic photocopying on archival appraisal, with particular attention to the macro-appraisal and collaborative models offered by Helen Samuels

Digital Curation and the Citizen Archivist

The increasing array and power of personal digital recordkeeping systems promises both to make it more difficult for established archives to acquire personal and family archives and less likely that individuals might wish to donate personal and family digital archives to archives, libraries, museums, and other institutions serving as documentary repositories. This paper provides a conceptual argument for how projects such as the Digital Curation one ought to consider developing spinoffs for archivists training private citizens how to preserve, manage, and use digital personal and family archives. Rethinking how we approach the public, which will increasingly face difficult challenges in caring for their digital archives, also brings with it substantial promise in informing them about the nature and importance of the archival mission. Can the Digital Curation project provide tools that canbe used for working with the public