Presented as part of the Literary Studies Seminar Series

Abstract

The Victorian era was an age of scientific discovery. A number of modern novels set in the Victorian era reflect this, engaging with the morally problematic aspects of scientific collections and collecting. Two recent novels, Jem Poster’s Rifling Paradise (2006) and Nicholas Drayson’s Love and the Platypus (2007) are both concerned with the relationship between the human and non-human. These novels challenge their protagonists to broaden their conception of the world from their scientific expectations. Moreover, I argue that these books undermine the ethical and ontological confidence of the Victorian scientific position.

Speaker

Jessica Hancock is a PhD candidate at the ANU, and is presenting this talk at the British Association for Victorian Studies in September. Her PhD examines the representation of the environment and natural world in neo-Victorian postcolonial fiction.