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Evolution and Victorian Culture

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Evolution and Victorian Culture

Evolution and Victorian Culture

Bernard V. Lightman, York University, Toronto
Bennett Zon, University of Durham
March 2017
Available
Paperback
9781316646786
    Description

    In this collection of essays from leading scholars, the dynamic interplay between evolution and Victorian culture is explored for the first time, mapping new relationships between the arts and sciences. Rather than focusing simply on evolution and literature or art, this volume brings together essays exploring the impact of evolutionary ideas on a wide range of cultural activities including painting, sculpture, dance, music, fiction, poetry, cinema, architecture, theatre, photography, museums, exhibitions and popular culture. Broad-ranging, rather than narrowly specialized, each chapter provides a brief introduction to key scholarship, a central section exploring original insights drawn from primary source material, and a conclusion offering overarching principles and a projection towards further areas of research. Each chapter covers the work of significant individuals and groups applying evolutionary theory to their particular art, both as theorists and practitioners. This comprehensive examination of topics sheds light on larger and previously unknown Victorian cultural patterns.

    • The first book to explore the interplay between evolution and the entire range of Victorian culture
    • Provides a brief overview of key scholarship as well as original research from expert scholars
    • Interdisciplinary, broad-ranging essays explore painting, sculpture, dance, music, fiction, poetry, cinema, architecture, theatre, photography, museums, exhibitions and popular culture

    Reviews & endorsements

    "[The editors] rearticulate one of our most persistent discussions in a provocative new light … [this book] will be useful on the shelf of anybody who cares about the complex fabric of evolution and the ways in which we attempt to understand it."
    Will Tattersdill, The British Society for Literature and Science (bsls.ac.uk)

    'What this volume does so well is to demonstrate the real range and complexity of Victorian evolutionary ideas, although we need to recognize that, with only a few notable exceptions, the non-Darwinians believed themselves to be Darwinian through and through.' Piers J. Hale, Isis

    See more reviews

    Product details

    August 2014
    Hardback
    9781107028425
    342 pages
    234 × 160 × 20 mm
    0.7kg
    35 b/w illus.
    Available

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    This title is available for institutional purchase via Cambridge Core

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    Related Journals

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    Victorian Literature and Culture encourages high quality original work concerned with all areas of Victorian literature and culture, including music and the fine arts. The journal presents work at the cutting edge of current research, including exciting new studies in untouched subjects or new methodologies. Contributions are welcomed from internationally established scholars as well as younger members of the profession. Editors' Topics currently being developed: "Victorian India," edited by Mary Ellis Gibson and "The Nineteenth-Century Pacific Rim," edited by Tamara S. Wagner. Review essays form a central part of the journal, and offer an authoritative view of important subjects together with a list of relevant works that serves as an up-to-date bibliography. The Works in Progress section allows the communication of parts of major works well in advance of their final publication. The Special Effects section allows publication of primary materials either previously unavailable or unknown to most readers.The editorial information and lists of contents of prior volumes are also available on our websitePlease note that the ownership and copyright of the content of volumes 19 to 24, inclusive, is retained by AMS Press, Inc., NY, USA. Consequently, the electronic versions of these volumes are not available to subscribers or other users of CJO. Any enquiries concerning these volumes should be addressed to the Publisher at [email protected].

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    Contents

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction Bernard V. Lightman and Bennett Zon
    • 1. Evolution and Victorian fiction Cannon Schmitt
    • 2. Poetry John Holmes
    • 3. Between specimen and imagination Elizabeth Edwards
    • 4. Early cinema and evolution Oliver Gaycken
    • 5. Evolution and Victorian arts Barbara Larson
    • 6. 'I'm evolving!': varieties of evolution on the Victorian stage Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr
    • 7. Dance and evolutionary thought in late Victorian discourse Theresa Jill Buckland
    • 8. The 'non-Darwinian' revolution and the Great Chain of Musical Being Bennett Zon
    • 9. Development and display: progressive evolution in British Victorian architecture and architectural theory Carla Yanni
    • 10. Dramas of development: exhibitions and evolution in Victorian Britain Sadiah Qureshi
    • 11. The popularization of evolution and Victorian culture Bernard V. Lightman.
      • Show more

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    Additional Information
    About the authors
      Contributors

    • Bernard V. Lightman, Bennett Zon, Cannon Schmitt, John Holmes, Elizabeth Edwards, Oliver Gaycken, Barbara Larson, Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr, Theresa Jill Buckland, Carla Yanni, Sadiah Qureshi

      • Editors
    • Bernard V. Lightman , York University, Toronto

      Bernard V. Lightman is Professor of Humanities at York University, Toronto, where he is Director of the Institute for Science and Technology Studies. He is also the Editor of the History of Science Society's flagship journal, Isis. His latest publications include Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain (2009), Victorian Popularizers of Science (2007) and Science in the Marketplace (2007, co-edited with Aileen Fyfe).

    • Bennett Zon , University of Durham

      Bennett Zon is Professor of Music at Durham University, where he is also Director of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Music. He has published articles, dictionary and encyclopaedia entries, reviews and edited volumes, as well as monographs including Representing Non-Western Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2007), Music and Metaphor in Nineteenth-Century British Musicology (2000) and The English Plainchant Revival (1999).

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