“Kate Williams’s The Pleasures of Men" (2012): mental disorder, trauma, resilience

Violence against women has been an important issue for neo-Victorian studies. Women’s 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 Williams’s 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 society’s crimes against women. These crimes need restoration and healing. At the same time, Judith Butler’s notions about vulnerability and resistance and Sarah Bracke’s ideas about resilience become relevant to claim for women’s agency after trauma as well as recovery through adaptation and forgiveness.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

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 Hobson’s Charity, St. Andrew’s 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 Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Memory frictions and reconciliation: Neo-victorian gothic and gender violence in Katy Darby’s The Whores’ Asylum (2012)

Katy Derby’s first novel, The Whores’ 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 –a brilliant medical student --, Edward Fraser –a Theology student –, and Diana – the woman who runs a refuge for fallen women – 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 “prostituted other”. 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 novel’s 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 Butler’s 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 Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía 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 Hobson’s Charity, St. Andrew’s 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 “Rules for the Government of the Spinning House” of 1849 and 1854, which include the regulation of the inmates’ 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 Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Prostitution, identity and the Neo-Victorian: Sarah Waters’ tipping the Velvet and the Ripper Street Series.

The analysis of sexual abuse and violence in two Neo-Victorian literary and visual productions, Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet (1999) and the BBC’s 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 Butler’s 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 Ripper’s 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 “prostituted other”. Therefore, drawing from Butler’s 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 “the other”.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía 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 “Bodies in Transit 2: Genders, Mobilities, and Interdependencies”. This project has connections with the previous one, “Bodies in Transit: from Conflict to Healing” 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 Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Victorian Pornography versus Contemporary Pornography: Belinda Starling’s The Journal of Dora Damage (2008) and Women’s 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 husband’s 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 “decent material” 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 man’s 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 Butler’s notions of a precarious life, mourning and violence will provide the theoretical framework for this paper.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Detective Fiction and the Neo-Victorian: Sexual Violence, Morality and Rescue Work in Lee Jackson’s The Last Pleasure Garden (2007)

In his third Inspector Decimus Webb novel, a detective from Scotland Yard, Jackson Lee re-appropriates the crime-fiction genre to portray several stories of gender abuse and violence. Several women become the victims of “The Cutter”, including Rose Perffit, who is an aspiring debutante and the daughter of a respectable middle-class family. At the same time Lee makes use of the Neo-Victorian genre to recover aspects of the Victorian archive like the popular pleasure gardens, a kind of public entertainment that provides 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 religion 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. Also, the novel’s commitment to the crime-fiction genre facilitates the appearance of chaos and disorder—a natural feature of crime fiction—within society and, furthermore, creates the atmosphere for the investigation of the mystery, the restoration of order—when possible—and the pursuit of the truth in the hands of the male protagonist. This attempt at the restoration of order is also a prevalent characteristic of our contemporary chaotic world. Following Julia’s Kristeva’s notion of the abject and Judith Butler’s 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 “prostituted other”.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Bodies in Transit: Re-thinking vulnerability and resistance in post-colonial neo-Victorian literature and culture

The aim of my participation in this round table is to make an approach to an analysis of contemporary historical fiction through the lens of theories of vulnerability and resistance. In particular, I would like to address postcolonial neo-Victorian fiction in the light of Judith Butler’s most recent ideas. One of the main features of neo-Victorianism is the re-writing of the Victorian past to discuss contentious topics of the present. The presence of Victorian culture in our contemporary societies is so outstanding that issues that preoccupied the Victorian mind such as violence, sexuality or Empire have become the main topics of controversy in neo-Victorian productions of our time. On this particular occasion, I am very interested in making an analysis of how the Victorian colonial setting has an echo in new forms of imperialism. The relations between the metropolis and its colonised territories around the world in the nineteenth century can be seen as the forerunners of the relationships between old colonial powers like England and its old colonised subjetcs in Africa, Asia or Australia today. In this way, “traces” of the colonial past can be discerned in our postcolonial globalised ways of governing the planet. In this sense, the notion of the “Neo-Victorians-at-sea”, coined by Elizabeth Ho, becomes essential in the urdenstanding of England’s colonial and post-colonial power and its consequences for the re-writing of a history where the voices of “the other” can be heard. This notion of the voyage where identities become fluid with the sea and dependent on one another is especially relevant; even the ship can be envisioned as the colonial scenario where postcolonial encounters take place. Re-writing history means resorting to nostalgia as a tool to remember the past, but at the same time post-colonialism can be interpreted as a memorial practice.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech