Recovering Fallen Women
Victorians Institute Conference Session
Furman University
October 13-14, 2017
In The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel, Elaine Freedgood suggests that the “physical arrangements of domesticity were necessary in preventing sexual anarchy,” noting how the curtains in Mary Barton “reorder” Esther after she becomes a prostitute. Even though such ideological work is complicated by the material history of the curtains’ imported fabric, such a reordering and reclamation of women through domestic objects is not uncommon within the Victorian imagination.
This session invites abstracts of 250-500 words focusing on the way material objects were used to recover the “Fallen Woman” in Victorian fiction. This session is not just interested in the ideological work of said objects; any research complicating the union between material object and the “fallen” discursive identity is also of interest.
These submissions will be part of a panel proposal for Victorians Institute Conference at Furman University from October 13-14, 2017. For more information about the conference, visit www.vcu.edu/vij.
Please send abstracts and CVs to Robyn Miller at rdm0017@auburn.edu by May 29, 2017.