Bankard, Jennifer Sopchockchai (Author)
In the late Victorian period, approaching the fin de siècle, popular fiction frequently featured what critics would now call mad scientists. These mad scientist characters served as a vehicle for Victorian authors to explore the epistemological relationship between humans and the material world, often highlighting the shortcomings of the human eye or subjective perception of reality. By tracing the scientific and supernatural discourses surrounding representations of scientists featured in works by H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle, this revisionist literary history demonstrates that Victorian popular fiction and "classic realist" novels share a common interest in human perceptions and representations of a material reality. Arguing that the genre categories traditionally applied to these texts are permeable and unstable, Testing Reality's Limits continues work begun by scholars, such as George Levine, who redefined Victorian realism as a self-conscious experiment rather than a naively mimetic practice, and addresses literature not yet studied by such scholars. While the project is rooted in literary criticism and Victorian literature, it also engages with contemporary popular culture and cinema. Each chapter concludes with a detailed analysis of notable film and television adaptations of each novel discussed, to place Victorian realism in context. By incorporating an adaptation studies perspective, the research offers a better understanding of both Victorian and contemporary trends, viewing popular culture as a series of intertextual relationships and an evolving history rather than isolated cultural moments.
...MoreDescription Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. . ProQuest Doc. ID 1346229750.
Book
Kripal, Jeffrey J.;
(2011)
Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal
(/isis/citation/CBB001201217/)
Book
Stiles, Anne;
(2012)
Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001200911/)
Book
Young, Francis;
(2013)
English Catholics and the Supernatural, 1553--1829
(/isis/citation/CBB001201678/)
Book
Lester D. Friedman;
Allison B. Kavey;
(2016)
Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives
(/isis/citation/CBB423366579/)
Book
Bould, Mark;
(2009)
The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction
(/isis/citation/CBB001033218/)
Book
Sherryl Vint;
(2021)
Science Fiction
(/isis/citation/CBB502690791/)
Chapter
Waugh, Patricia;
(2011)
Mind in Modern Fiction: Literary and Philosophical Perspectives after Darwin
(/isis/citation/CBB001202033/)
Article
Castagnaro, Mario;
(2012)
Lunar Fancies and Earthly Truths: The Moon Hoax of 1835 and the Penny Press
(/isis/citation/CBB001200842/)
Article
Ward, Megan;
(2013)
Our Posthuman Past: Victorian Realism, Cybernetics, and the Problem of Information
(/isis/citation/CBB001253050/)
Article
Clair, Justin St.;
(2011)
Borrowed Time: Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day and the Victorian Fourth Dimension
(/isis/citation/CBB001034748/)
Article
Kreisel, Deanna K.;
(2014)
The Discreet Charm of Abstraction: Hyperspace Worlds and Victorian Geometry
(/isis/citation/CBB001550339/)
Book
Page, Michael R.;
(2012)
The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells: Science, Evolution, and Ecology
(/isis/citation/CBB001320100/)
Article
Hunting, Penelope;
(2012)
Charles Dickens (1812--70): “The longer I live the more I doubt the doctors”
(/isis/citation/CBB001200788/)
Article
Courtney, Stephen;
Smith, Crosbie W.;
(2013)
“Or Vast Fiery Cross, on the Banner of Morn”: Reading the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's Shipwrecks
(/isis/citation/CBB001421377/)
Book
Dawson, Gowan;
(2012)
Victorian Science and Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB001251062/)
Book
Williams, Rosalind H.;
(2013)
The Triumph of Human Empire: Verne, Morris, and Stevenson at the End of the World
(/isis/citation/CBB001451376/)
Article
Helen Small;
(2020)
Artificial Intelligence: George Eliot, Ernst Kapp, and the Projections of Character
(/isis/citation/CBB851762854/)
Book
Miller, John;
(2012)
Empire and the Animal Body: Violence, Identity and Ecology in Victorian Adventure Fiction
(/isis/citation/CBB001552845/)
Article
Orthia, Lindy A.;
(2011)
Antirationalist Critique or Fifth Column of Scientism? Challenges from Doctor Who to the Mad Scientist Trope
(/isis/citation/CBB001034666/)
Article
Stiles, Anne;
(2009)
Literature in Mind: H. G. Wells and the Evolution of the Mad Scientist
(/isis/citation/CBB001030597/)
Be the first to comment!