Brenda Ayres – författare

This book, Victorians and Their Animals: Beast on a Leash, investigates the notion that British Victorians did see themselves as naturally dominant species over other humans and over animals. They conscientiously, hegemonically were determined to rule those beneath them and the animal within themselves albeit with varying degrees of success and failure. The articles in this collection apply posthuman and other theories, including queer, postcolonialism, deconstruction, and Marxism, in their exploration of Victorian attitudes toward animals. They study the biopolitical relationships between human and nonhuman animals in several key Victorian literary works. Some of this book’s chapters deal with animal ethics and moral aesthetics. Also being studied is the representation of animals in several Victorian novels as narrative devices to signify class status and gender dynamics, either to iterate socially acceptable mores or to satirize hypocrisy or breach of behavior or to voice social protest. All of the chapters analyse the interdependence of people and animals during the nineteenth century.

This book, Victorians and Their Animals: Beast on a Leash, investigates the notion that British Victorians did see themselves as naturally dominant species over other humans and over animals. They conscientiously, hegemonically were determined to rule those beneath them and the animal within themselves albeit with varying degrees of success and failure. The articles in this collection apply posthuman and other theories, including queer, postcolonialism, deconstruction, and Marxism, in their exploration of Victorian attitudes toward animals. They study the biopolitical relationships between human and nonhuman animals in several key Victorian literary works. Some of this book’s chapters deal with animal ethics and moral aesthetics. Also being studied is the representation of animals in several Victorian novels as narrative devices to signify class status and gender dynamics, either to iterate socially acceptable mores or to satirize hypocrisy or breach of behavior or to voice social protest. All of the chapters analyse the interdependence of people and animals during the nineteenth century.

This is the first collection to investigate Charles Dickens on his vast and various opinions about the uses and abuses of the tenets of Christian faith that imbue English Victorian culture. Although previous studies have looked at his well-known antipathies toward Dissenters, Evangelicals, Catholics, and Jews, they have also disagreed about Dickens’ thoughts on Unitarianism and speculated on doctrines of Protestantism that he endorsed or rejected. Besides addressing his depiction of these religious groups, the volume’s contributors locate gaps in scholarship and unresolved illations about poverty and charity, representations of children, graveyards, labor, scientific controversy, and other social issues through an investigation of Dickens’ theological concerns. In addition, given that Dickens’ texts continue to influence every generation around the globe, a timely inclusion in the collection is a consideration of the neo-Victorian multi-media representations of Dickens’ work and his ideas on theological questions pitched to a postmodern society.

This is the first collection to investigate Charles Dickens on his vast and various opinions about the uses and abuses of the tenets of Christian faith that imbue English Victorian culture. Although previous studies have looked at his well-known antipathies toward Dissenters, Evangelicals, Catholics, and Jews, they have also disagreed about Dickens’ thoughts on Unitarianism and speculated on doctrines of Protestantism that he endorsed or rejected. Besides addressing his depiction of these religious groups, the volume’s contributors locate gaps in scholarship and unresolved illations about poverty and charity, representations of children, graveyards, labor, scientific controversy, and other social issues through an investigation of Dickens’ theological concerns. In addition, given that Dickens’ texts continue to influence every generation around the globe, a timely inclusion in the collection is a consideration of the neo-Victorian multi-media representations of Dickens’ work and his ideas on theological questions pitched to a postmodern society.

Whether a secularized morality, biblical worldview, or unstated set of mores, the Victorian period can and always will be distinguished from those before and after for its pervasive sense of the "proper way" of thinking, speaking, doing, and acting. Animals in literature taught Victorian children how to be behave. If you are a postmodern posthumanist, you might argue, "But the animals in literature did not write their own accounts." Animal characters may be the creations of writers’ imagination, but animals did and do exist in their own right, as did and do humans. The original essays in Animals and Their Children in Victorian explore the representation of animals in children’s literature by resisting an anthropomorphized perception of them. Instead of focusing on the domestication of animals, this book analyzes how animals in literature "civilize" children, teaching them how to get along with fellow creatures—both human and nonhuman.

Whether a secularized morality, biblical worldview, or unstated set of mores, the Victorian period can and always will be distinguished from those before and after for its pervasive sense of the "proper way" of thinking, speaking, doing, and acting. Animals in literature taught Victorian children how to be behave. If you are a postmodern posthumanist, you might argue, "But the animals in literature did not write their own accounts." Animal characters may be the creations of writers’ imagination, but animals did and do exist in their own right, as did and do humans. The original essays in Animals and Their Children in Victorian explore the representation of animals in children’s literature by resisting an anthropomorphized perception of them. Instead of focusing on the domestication of animals, this book analyzes how animals in literature "civilize" children, teaching them how to get along with fellow creatures—both human and nonhuman.

The Routledge Handbook of Victorian Scandals in Literature and Culture exposes, explores, and examines what Victorians once considered flagrant breaches of decorum. Infringements that were fantasized through artforms or were actually committed exceeded entertaining parlor gossip; once in print they were condemned as socially contaminative but were also consumed as delightfully sensational. Written by scholars in diverse disciplines, this volume:

This handbook is an invaluable resource about Victorian literature, art, and culture which challenges its readers to ponder perplexing questions about how and why some scandals were perpetrated and propagated in the nineteenth century while others were not, and what the controversies reveal about the human condition that persists beyond Victoria’s reign of propriety.

The Routledge Handbook of Victorian Scandals in Literature and Culture exposes, explores, and examines what Victorians once considered flagrant breaches of decorum. Infringements that were fantasized through artforms or were actually committed exceeded entertaining parlor gossip; once in print they were condemned as socially contaminative but were also consumed as delightfully sensational. Written by scholars in diverse disciplines, this volume:

This handbook is an invaluable resource about Victorian literature, art, and culture which challenges its readers to ponder perplexing questions about how and why some scandals were perpetrated and propagated in the nineteenth century while others were not, and what the controversies reveal about the human condition that persists beyond Victoria’s reign of propriety.

Becoming Wollstonecraft: The Interconnection of Her Life and Works draws from biography to explain her works, and it analyses the works to draw a biographical composite of Wollstonecraft. Becoming Wollstonecraft will be more fully developed than previous works, with added information that has not previously been associated with Wollstonecraft, such as the story of Reverend Mr. Joshua Waterhouse.

Although there are over fifty book-length biographies published on Wollstonecraft, very few agree on much about Wollstonecraft. She seems to have become an “everywoman,” or a figure unfixed in time and protean. Deemed the Mother of Feminism, like feminism itself, she is what people have wanted her to be and is by no means an immutable or universal personage.

A study of her life as evident by her works and vice versa, this monograph intends to refocus the image of Wollstonecraft for students and scholars, informed by biographical texts on Wollstonecraft and on those people in Wollstonecraft’s life and acquaintance, historical context, and exposition from her works.

Becoming Wollstonecraft: The Interconnection of Her Life and Works draws from biography to explain her works, and it analyses the works to draw a biographical composite of Wollstonecraft. Becoming Wollstonecraft will be more fully developed than previous works, with added information that has not previously been associated with Wollstonecraft, such as the story of Reverend Mr. Joshua Waterhouse.

Although there are over fifty book-length biographies published on Wollstonecraft, very few agree on much about Wollstonecraft. She seems to have become an “everywoman,” or a figure unfixed in time and protean. Deemed the Mother of Feminism, like feminism itself, she is what people have wanted her to be and is by no means an immutable or universal personage.

A study of her life as evident by her works and vice versa, this monograph intends to refocus the image of Wollstonecraft for students and scholars, informed by biographical texts on Wollstonecraft and on those people in Wollstonecraft’s life and acquaintance, historical context, and exposition from her works.