ACCUTE (Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English) occurs from May 28 to May 31, 2011 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Negotiations in the Marketplace: The Book and the Family

Panel organized and chaired by Mary Rimmer (U of New Brunswick, Fredericton)

In Past and Present (1843), Thomas Carlyle has his fictional alter-ego Sauerteig identify the "Hell of the English" as "not making money": this sardonic view of materialism and the pursuit of wealth finds a variety of echoes across the spectrum of Victorian literature. Yet at the same time, money and wealth had a certain fascination for writers, many of whom built economically successful careers around literary work. This call invited proposals for papers on "Money, Property and Victorian Culture." Possible topics were to include metaphorical uses of wealth and money-making; literary/cultural framings of business, industry and property; periodical debates over political economy; Victorian theories of wealth and capital; the roles of money in the courtship plot; the business of literature (e.g. copyright law, serialization, circulating libraries, the changing literary marketplace); the debates over women's rights to earn, own and control money; the intersections between religious and economic discourse. Additional topics within the general theme were also welcome. Below are the papers that were selected.

Panel Participants

• Andrea Day (U of Toronto), " 'Works by Andrew Lang': Reading the Anthropological, Folkloric, and Commercial Paratexts of The Blue Fairy Bookand The Arabian Nights Entertainments"
• Dorothy Hadfield (U of Guelph), "Controlling Mothers with Money: Bernard Shaw vs Janet Achurch"
• Vicky Simpson (Dalhousie), "Heroine-Homemakers for Hire: The Commodification of the Family in Lady Audley's Secret and East Lynne"

Queries to Mary Rimmer (mrimmer@unb.ca).
edit my paper online