This thesis examines Oscar Wilde’s theories of art in connection with specific debates ongoing in Victorian psychology as it emerged in the periodical press. By cross examining Wilde’s periodical contributions with psychological theories, concepts and discussions disseminated th…
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Over the course of the 1830s and 1840s, a professional scientific and medical community was coming into being. Exclusive membership, limits to the definition of science, and separation of the professional from the popular sphere became important elements in the consolidation of …
This practice-led research project explores English and French sentimental jewellery of the Victorian period. ‘Sentimental jewellery’ or ‘message jewellery’ denotes jewellery created to function as a tangible expression of feeling between donor and recipient, mediated through co…
This dissertation examines the self-fashioning of the multiple personae of two subversive historical figures: the dandy and the demimonde in nineteenth-century British culture. Tracing the dandy and the demimonde from the Regency period to the end of the century, this project ex…
This dissertation argues that Victorian novels commonly depict newspaper reading in order to explain and critique the kind of national feeling elicited by the popular press. While Benedict Anderson considers the ways in which reading newspapers and novels fosters a sense of nati…
Recent media attention on the trial and conviction of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman convicted of drowning her five children, as well as on female suicide bombers in Israel, indicates not only “a morbid curiosity in the United States relating to mothers killing their children” (M…
Sabato Morais (1823–1897), an Italian-born Jewish minister who came to Philadelphia from London in 185 1, became the preeminent exponent in America of enlightened orthodox Judaism. To counter threats posed to Jewish group survival, Morais advanced a voluntaristic model of Jewish…
If crime stories continually pass before the public eye, a subset of those crimes become social dramas, upsetting and even transfixing a community for weeks and months at a time. Centered upon a series of murder cases in Virginia, this project charts the evolution of crime sensa…
Recent scholarship has attributed the popularity of the Arabian Nights tales in the Arabic-speaking world to the fulfillment of expectations of worldly justice and reward rather than to the presence of magic. In contrast, this study finds that the tales' reception in late-imperi…
With numerous contributions to geography and literature, Sir Richard Burton is a major Victorian figure. Burton's main importance to his age lies in the fact that he was one of the premier imperial communicators of his time, disseminating numerous aspects of indigenous societies…
Investigating the often paradoxical ramifications of the spinster's insistent embodiment in Victorian representations, "The Old Maid in the Garret: Representations of the Spinster in Victorian Culture" traces the ubiquitous but overlooked trope of the "old maid" in a set of disc…
Contemporary historians of the British military expedition to Abyssinia (hereafter called Ethiopia) generally ascribed the source of the Ethiopian conflict to the lack of a reply from Queen Victoria to a letter from Tewodros II, in which he requested military aid and the exchang…
Bringing the Tiger into the Parlor: The Consumption of Exotic Objects in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel considers the ways foreign objects are exotified through consumption and display in the domestic settings of novels by Susan Ferrier, Benjamin Disraeli, William Makepeac…
The lengthy Victorian period, extending from 1832 until 1901, was a time of cultural turmoil. New scientific discoveries were being made daily, and Christianity was forced to deal with issues of Darwinism, occultism, and growing disbelief in God. By the start of the fin de siècl…
Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler (1828-1906) was the premier feminist in nineteenth-century Great Britain. She was involved in campaigns to extend to women social, economic, legal, political, educational, employment, and suffrage rights equal to those extended to men. She success…
Dr. John Clifford (1836-1923) was an influential English Baptist minister and active Christian Socialist. He held many leadership positions such as President of the London Baptist Association in 1879, President of the Baptist Union in 1888 and 1896, first President of the Baptis…