19,714 research outputs found
Memory frictions and reconciliation: Neo-victorian gothic and gender violence in Katy Darbyâs The Whoresâ Asylum (2012)
Katy Derbyâs first novel, The Whoresâ Asylum (2012), is an attempt to deal with the issue of prostitution and rescue work in Oxford in the 1880s. Jericho is an area where, away from the prestigious university colleges, drunkards, thieves and prostitutes loiter around in depraved houses of accommodation and taverns. The protagonists, Stephen Chapman âa brilliant medical student --, Edward Fraser âa Theology student â, and Diana â the woman who runs a refuge for fallen women â are the three angles of a triangle where friendship, desire and secrets meet at the heart of Victorian England. A succession of dreadful events together with the violence exerted against women brings to light the context in which the helplessness of the innocent victims of lust and debauchery is shown. Their aim is not only to keep order in this working-class suburb, but also to find the way to show sympathy for the deaths and suffering of the âprostituted otherâ. At the same time Darby makes use of the Neo-Victorian Gothic to recover aspects of the Victorian archive which provide the setting to discuss issues of morality, sexual exploitation and reform so important for the Victorian mind but also of relevance in our contemporary societies. The role of medical practice and rescue work is emphasized from the very beginning, and allusions to many events and cultural aspects of the period are frequent, following the Neo-Victorian trend of re-writing the past. Similarly, the novelâs commitment to the memoir style represents an attempt at the restoration of justice for those neglected by past and present communities and whose suffering does not deserve any political consideration. Following Judith Butlerâs theories of gender, violence and mourning, this paper aims to discuss issues of the Victorian neglected other and contemporary concerns about the deaths and suffering of the victims of sexual exploitation. As a consequence of humanity having been denied to particular groups of people both in the Victorian past and in our postmodern presents, violence has been justified against these marginalized groups that do not deserve mourning because of sexual, racial, religious or ethnic differences. In this context, the lives and deaths of prostitutes have no value or social relevance in the power regimes of the past and the present, perpetuating western systems of government and sovereignty across time and different locations.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
âKate Williamsâs The Pleasures of Men" (2012): mental disorder, trauma, resilience
Violence against women has been an important issue for neo-Victorian studies. Womenâs bodies and minds have been the object of violence in Victorian times and historical fiction echoes traumas from the past that need restoration and healing in the present. Kate Williamsâs The Pleasures of Men (2012) is an example of a novel where the protagonist, Catherine Sorgeiul, is a middle-class girl who lives in a house in the East of London with her uncle after a traumatic past. She needs to heal the scars of her suffering after becoming an orphan, but she believes herself to be evil. She feels a fascination for the murders committed by a serial killer nicknamed The Man of Crows in London in 1840.
Catherine is a heroine with a vivid imagination and a mysterious past. This Gothic thriller takes the reader to a neo-Victorian city which becomes the landscape for female subjectless subjectivities. The victims of the killer and Catherine herself become fragmented, dislocated and haunted identities. London is the labyrinth where the lives of the poor and the destitute is precarious and has no value. The notion of Otherness can be found in the female victims as in Catherine herself, whose delirious psyche becomes akin to that of the killer. As the murders cause panic throughout the city, she comes to believe she can channel the voices of his victims and that they will lead her to the Man himself. However, lurking behind the lies she has been told about her past are secrets more deadly and devastating than anything her imagination can conjure.
The aim of this paper is to show how neo-Victorian novels can speak about societyâs crimes against women. These crimes need restoration and healing. At the same time, Judith Butlerâs notions about vulnerability and resistance and Sarah Brackeâs ideas about resilience become relevant to claim for womenâs agency after trauma as well as recovery through adaptation and forgiveness.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tec
Prostitution, identity and the Neo-Victorian: Sarah Watersâ tipping the Velvet and the Ripper Street Series.
The analysis of sexual abuse and violence in two Neo-Victorian literary and visual productions, Sarah Watersâ Tipping the Velvet (1999) and the BBCâs drama series Ripper Street (2012) will be the object of discussion in terms of agency of and mourning for the abused.
Tipping the Velvet is set in the last decades of the nineteenth century and its two lesbian protagonists are given voice as the marginalised and the other, following the Neo-Victorian trend of re-writing the history of those whose lives were not found in the mainstream historical record. Judith Butlerâs notion of gender performance is taken to its extremes in a story where male prostitution is exerted through a woman who behaves and dresses like a man, but who will also become the victim of sexual violence and abuse. In Ripper Street, the protagonist, the leader of the Whitechapel H Division, Inspector Edmund Reid, tries to do justice to the women who sell their bodies in London East End in 1889 after the Ripperâs murders. Their aim is not only to keep order in this working-class suburb, but also to find the way to show sympathy for the deaths and suffering of the âprostituted otherâ.
Therefore, drawing from Butlerâs theories of gender, violence and mourning, this paper will address Victorian and contemporary discourses connected with the notions of sexual identity and agency as the result of sexual violence and gender abuse, and of the prostituted body as the site of vulnerability and dependency of âthe otherâ.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
Cambridge Prostitution and the Rules Governing the University Spinning House in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century
The aim of this paper is to analyse the situation of prostitution in Cambridge and its regulation by the middle of the nineteenth century based on archival research. Cambridge Universitiy was characterised at the time by being a singular institution regarding its relationship with town and with the application of its own norms within its jurisdiction. As a consequence, the University of Cambridge had its own system of regulation of prostitution through a proctorial system within its boundaries and with a place of detention for prostitutes known as the Spnning House. In this place, located in Hobsonâs Charity, St. Andrewâs Sreet, fallen women were confined for a number of days as a way of punishment for their immoral activity. In this University prison, women were detained under unsalubrious conditions which, on some occasions, ended in the illness or premature death of some of the inmates. In particular, I am going to focus this paper on the close scrutiny of the âRules for the Government of the Spinning Houseâ of 1849 and 1854, which include the regulation of the inmatesâ behaviour together with their diet. Also the rules that applied to the Matron, the Chaplain and the Medical Officer will be discussed in the light of some census data and prison records. As a result, a number of issues concerning the treatment of Cambridge prostitutes by University authorities can be discerned. Also the dreadful consequences of the system and the implication of different social agents can be examined through the close reading of these primary sources.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
Death in the Spinning House: Cambridge Prostitution and University Regulations by the Middle of the Nineteenth Century
The aim of this paper is to analyse the situation of prostitution in Cambridge and its regulation by the middle of the nineteenth century based on archival research. Cambridge Universitiy was characterised at the time by being a singular institution regarding its relationship with town and with the application of its own norms within its jurisdiction. As a consequence, the University of Cambridge had its own system of regulation of prostitution through a proctorial system within its boundaries and with a place of detention for prostitutes known as the Spnning House. In this place, located in Hobsonâs Charity, St. Andrewâs Sreet, fallen women were confined for a number of days as a way of punishment for their immoral activity. In this University prison, women were detained under unsalubrious conditions which, on some occasions, ended in the premature death of some of the inmates. In particular, I am going to focus this paper on one case study: the death of Elizabeth Howe being a prisoner in the Spinning House in 1846. From the testimonies upon oath of a numer of witnesses, including the keeper, the surgeon, and family, and neighbours and friends of the deceased together with the depositions of the coroner and the verdict of the jury after the enquiry, a number of issues concerning the treatment of Cambridge prostitutes by University authorities can be discerned. Also the dreadful consequences of the system and the implication of different social agents can be discussed through the close reading and analysis of these primary sources.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
Genders, mobilities, and interdependencies: the aims and theoretical background of bodies in transit
The aim of this round table is to present an overview of the aims, research topics and theoretical framework of the new project âBodies in Transit 2: Genders, Mobilities, and Interdependenciesâ. This project has connections with the previous one, âBodies in Transit: from Conflict to Healingâ in its focus on embodiment, and on how bodies are historically transformed through social relations and their technologies from feminist, queer, and posthuman theoretical approaches, but departs from it by shifting the focus from violence and healing to the body and its metamorphoses within a wider network of human and non-human actions. Rather than approaching the topic in discontinuous units, ie. one isolated example of conflict (with ensuing trauma and healing process if any) in its contemporary literary rendering, we aim to look at bodies as immersed in ever-widening circles of relations and interdependences with other natural and/or social formations. This general topic comprises four specific concepts that will be addressed in four work packages: Embodiments, Mobilities, Interdependencies, and Accountability.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
Victorian Pornography versus Contemporary Pornography: Belinda Starlingâs The Journal of Dora Damage (2008) and Womenâs Agency and Emancipation.
Pornography is and has been a contentious issue in the Victorian past and in our contemporary societies, and the role of women in the business has been very much discussed by Victorian and contemporary critics and academics alike. The concern is a double-edged matter: on the one hand, we have the question of women as writers of pornography and bookbinders of pornographic books, and, on the other, their role in the pornographic market as the victims of sexual exploitation. Both issues are an important concern for the neo-Victorian agenda with the publication of historical fictions that give voice to silenced matters. These fictions also reflect the presence of pornography in our contemporary world and question our modernity and civilisation regarding sexual matters.
The Diary of Dora Damage (2008) by Belinda Starling provides us with the Victorian context to analyse the role of women in the pornographic trade and to decipher all the possibilities that the business provides both for their emancipation or discrimination. Dora Damage is a woman whose husband is a bookbinder in Lambeth in the 1850s. Her husbandâs illness and the threat of ending up in the workhouse make her consider the possibility of becoming a bookbinder herself. However, although she starts working with âdecent materialâ she finds herself working for certain members of the aristocracy binding pornographic texts. In the second half of the nineteenth century pornographic books circulated among members of certain private societies like Les Sauvages Nobles who consumed these obscene publications in private circles. This led to the passing of the first Obscene Publication Act of 1857. The selling of pornographic materials became a flourishing business and Holywell Street became the centre of all kinds of transactions.
The aim of this paper is to contend that Dora achieves independence and agency in a manâs world and, at the same time, re-affirms her sexual identity despite being a Victorian wife and mother. This, in the context of a Neo-Victorian novel, will also allow us to analyse how pornography is not such a liberating and emancipating activity for the women of the new millenium. At the same time, Judith Butlerâs notions of a precarious life, mourning and violence will provide the theoretical framework for this paper.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
ELEMENTS INVOLVED IN THE TERRITORY BRAND FROM RESIDENTSâ PERCEPTION: THE CITY OF MĂLAGA
The brand might create a position of the territory that could be useful for the development of geographical spaces. It could also become a solid basis upon which to make decisions about the tourism planning of a city. This paper deals with the features, which are recognized by residents as those that are involved in the creation of MĂĄlaga brand.
In order to achieve the goals set in this research, a descriptive methodology has been used. This study has been carried out using a questionnaire in which 1230 residents have participated. The findings have corroborated the hypotheses. Indeed, the results show that MĂĄlaga brand is being built under the concept of culture and that some places of the city are vital in the making of the territory image. This also encourages economic growth and hence employment. This paper offers important implications and tools to both public and private institutions insofar as they promote tourism promotion campaigns
An educational tool to assist the design process of switched reluctance machines
The design of electric machines is a hot topic in the syllabuses of several undergraduate and
graduate courses. With the development of hybrid and electrical vehicles, this subject is gaining
more popularity, especially in electrical engineering courses. This paper presents a computeraided
educational tool to guide engineering students in the design process of a switched
reluctance machine (SRM). A step-by-step design procedure is detailed and a user guide
interface (GUI) programmed in the MatlabÂź environment developed for this purpose is shown.
This GUI has been proved a useful tool to help the students to validate the results obtained in
their lecture assignments, while aiding to achieve a better understanding of the design process of
electric machines. A validation of the educational tool is done by means of finite element
method (FEM) simulations.Postprint (author's final draft
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