Browse Hierarchy ESH7082: Victorian Mediascapes

This module examines key works of Victorian literature in relation to the emergence of new print, sonic, and visual media during the nineteenth century. How do fictional narratives engage with an increasingly transnational media environment that gave rise to new forms of serial storytelling; the invention of technologies like the phonograph, photograph, telegraph, telephone, and typewriter; and perplexing social questions generated by the accelerated pace of media change? Investigative procedures derived from the disciplines of print culture, media history, and the digital humanities will be used to explore how authors responded to the explosion in forms of entertainment produced for an emerging mass audience during this period. Related questions about reading practices, changing conceptions of time, gendered notions of authorship, evolving models of British identity, and the relentless commodification of literature will be addressed through readings of literary narratives alongside supplementary non-fiction and digital resources relevant to this turbulent media moment.