The Public Place of the (Neo-)Victorians

The Victorians are everywhere. Neo-Victorian adaptations of their writings, lives and culture are all around us in the contemporary marketplace. (Neo)Victorianism sells in its most popular forms, from blockbuster films, TV serialisations and bestselling novels. The public appetite for the nineteenth century and modern re-workings of it is therefore a given in a global cultural economy. How, though, do we academics engage those audiences, readers, viewers with the research on the Victorians and the neo-Victorian? What strategies might we consider to maximise the benefits, impacts and purpose of our scholarship to a society-at-large which is so attentive to creative interpretation but not necessarily critical approaches? This presentation will draw on my personal experience as a researcher in both Victorian and neo-Victorian studies. It will involve some highlights and low moments from my  own past projects engaging the public with the (neo)Victorian (be it in libraries, archives or public squares), and some suggestions for ways in which reciprocal engagement, co-production of research and the consideration of contemporary public concerns, can offer an entry point to scholarly debate. I will also draw on over five years of work as Director of Research at the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, including examples from projects focussed on public engagement and partnership experience with museums, galleries, local history and community groups and organisations such as the BBC.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Are all (neo-) Victorians murderers? Serials, killers and other historicidal maniacs

What role do the acts of murder and dis(re)membering play in contemporary culture’s use of the Victorian? This article makes a deliberately provocative intervention in questioning the way in which the genre of neo-Victorianism raises ethical issues about real lives, the reading and writing of “true crime” and the position of the critic/historian. Beginning with a factual twenty-first century murder case and the role of Victorian reading matter as a marker of suspicion, even a sign of guilt, in the public consciousness and press reporting of the case, the article moves on to explore the tensions in re-visioning reality as quasi-fiction in a case study of the work of Kate Summerscale, focussing on the slippage between the figures of the writer, the detective, and the historian in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008) and The Wicked Boy (2016). In broadening the definition of ‘neo-Victorianism’ to include acts of genre-blurring across the lines between creative non-fiction and historical fiction, I argue that an approach to the past that destabilises genres and forms without sufficiently self-reflective or critically engaged perspectives on authorial motives presents a troublingly unresolved ethical dilemma in these works. Invoking the dangers of criminal reading and reading criminally, the article considers what rights the dead have to be redeemed or protected from our contemporary historicidal enquiry, which in its attempt to resurrect the past often itself kills off narratives of redemption and reform

Outcome after palliative cardiac surgery in a developing country

The outcome of 121 children who underwent palliative cardiac surgery at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital over a 5 year period, 1980 1984, was retrospectively examined. 79 children had systemic artery to pulmonary artery shunt operations (SPS), 40 had pulmonary artery bands (PAB) and 2 had surgical septectomies. SPS was most often done for children with Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF, 26 cases) or complex univentricular hearts with right ventricular outflow tract obstruction (27 cases). PAB was done chiefly for ventricular septa! defects, alone (VSD, 8 cases) or with coarctation of the aorta (9 cases). Children were referred from a wide area with 63 cases being referred from other major centres and foreign countries. Overall, 36 children died (30 % mortality): 5 died at surgery, 6 within 48 hours of surgery, a further 5 within 31 days; and 20 died after 31 days. SPS and PAB had the same early mortality rates ( 13 % ) • SPS had higher late and overall mortality rates (20 and 33 %) than PAB (10 and 23 %). Age at operation was found to be the most significant determinant of the overall mortality rate: children less than six months had a mortality of 42 % and those over 6 months, 13 % • The children were grouped into those with lesions which were probably correctable and those that were unlikely to be so, based on diagnosis and age at surgery: those with correctable lesions had a lower overall mortality (22 %) than those with uncorrectable lesions (43 %). Where the surgery was performed as an emergency, there was a higher overall and early mortality (55 and 35 respectively), compared to those operations which were performed electively ( 25 and 9 % ) • The presence of other medical conditions, for example congenital abnormalities and infections, was also a determinant of death (44 % mortality if other medical condition present, 26 % if absent). sex, population group, home address and type of surgery performed did not significantly affect mortality when examined by multivariate analysis. Using routine methods of follow up, it was initially thought that 17 % of all patients (22 % of survivors) were lost to follow up. An important determinant of this was the referral centre. 31 % of cases from other major centres and 20 % of foreign cases were lost, as compared to 8 % of cases from smaller towns near Cape Town and 2 % of children from Cape Town. Population group (35 % Blacks, 14 % Coloureds and 7 % Whites were lost), and palliative operation (23 % SPS, and 5 % PAB lost) were also significant determinants. It was possible to trace 12 of the 20 children who were thought to be lost to follow. 8 had died, 3 were still awaiting correction and 1 was traced and received corrective surgery. The records of the children who underwent cardiac surgery in 1987 were also analysed. There was no difference in the demographic characteristics of either group, and the early mortality was the same. This study shows that the outcome after palliative cardiac surgery is poor, with a high mortality rate and children often being lost to follow up. The decision to palliate rather than to correct a congenital heart defect must be made after balancing these risks with those of early correction for the particular surgical team. Should palliative surgery be undertaken, careful follow up is essential to ensure that complications of palliation do not set in and that corrective surgery is done at the optimal time