Victorian Realism and Crime
A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2025) | Viewed by 6051
Special Issue Editors
Interests: Victorian realist prose; literature and psychology; crime fiction (especially representations of criminal psychology and psychopathy); horror, and film and television adaptation
Interests: concepts of assessment and feedback; decolonising pedagogy/assessment; programme development/learning design; communities of practice; access, participation and progression
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The definition of literary realism and the key features of Victorian realist novels have long been the subject of debate. However, most would agree that Victorian realist texts have traditionally focused on the lived experience of everyday people, representing the observable world and embracing literal representation of it, and using it to present social commentary prescient to the real world it is designed to reflect.
Victorian and Golden Age crime fiction, meanwhile, has historically been tied to the sensational, the allegorical, the formulaic, and (in broader terms) the willing suspension of disbelief. Readers accept, and in some ways are almost expected to predict, the formula and conclusion to the story, and are content in the knowledge that the story will reach a predictable conclusion.
However, crime is in and of itself a reality of life, and any tale that purports to be realist should accept this premise; indeed, many canonical realist texts in the Victorian period involve crimes that rival those of sensation fiction in terms of their depiction and narrative impact in spite of the very different critical responses to the genres. With this in mind, we invite abstracts for a Special Issue of Humanities to look at the connections between Victorian realism and depictions of, commentaries on or engagement with crime and criminality. Topics for submission could include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Realist fiction and representations of criminality;
- Realist fiction and crime as social commentary;
- The realism of Victorian/nineteenth-century crime and sensation fiction;
- Representations or depictions of true crime in fiction;
- Critiques of ideas of realism using crime as a lens for discussion;
- The historical and social realities of Victorian crime;
- The psychology of Victorian crime;
- Victorian detectives and detection;
- Adaptations and neo-Victorian engagement with crime;
- Theoretical approaches to Victorian crime;
- Comparative approaches to crime in realist and sensationalist/crime fiction of the period.
Abstracts of 250 words should be sent to maraines@liverpool.ac.uk and/or samuel.saunders@liverpool.ac.uk by [31 October 2023]. Please also feel free to contact either editor for an informal discussion about the project.
Dr. Melissa Raines
Dr. Sam Saunders
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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