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CFP: Special Issue of Neo-Victorian Studies on Neo-Victorian Asia (1/31/16; 2017)

neovictorian studiesNeo-Victorian Asia

2017 special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies

Recent neo-Victorian scholarship has expanded the canon to explore examples of postcolonial, non-Anglocentric neo-Victorianism or neo-Victorian texts in translation, and critically examines neo-Victorian studies’ own colonising activities as it turns its attention to “global Victoriana” (Kaplan). This special issue contributes to the project of expanding and interrogating the geography of neo-Victorianism by drawing attention to Asia as a particularly fertile site of neo-Victorian production. Asia offers an opportunity to investigate the range of “improper postcolonialisms” (Ho) that have emerged in the aftermath of the British empire and, as a mnemic or representational strategy, neo-Victorianism can shed new light on topics such as neo-imperialism, still-existing colonialisms, race, gender and diaspora, to name but a few. However, Asia might also present neo-Victorian studies with interpretive obstacles and intercultural challenges if not outright resistance. This special issue seeks to examine the new perspectives that Asia might offer neo-Victorianism and vice versa. For the purposes of this issue, ‘Asia’ will be interpreted widely to include representations of Asia, Asians, and Asian culture in neo-Victorian works; ex-colonies of European empires; Asian colonization within Asia; and Asian locations that resisted or were enthralled by what ‘the Victorian’ represented. Contributors are encouraged to think widely beyond fiction and film to other media, including drama, architecture, dance, visual culture, art and politics. Essays treating neo-Victorian fiction and texts in translation or in languages other than English are also welcome.  Topics might include but are not limited to:

-neo-Victorian approaches to the after-effects of European colonial empires in Asia or Asian colonization and national expansion within Asia
-colonial architecture, heritage conservation, adaptive reuse, Victorian space in postcolonial locations
-‘neo-Victorientalism’ and Asian aesthetics across genres and media, for example, steampunk, science fiction, videogames, anime and manga
-Asian traffic – opium, slavery, coolies, migration, missionaries, travel literature –  and neo-Victorian texts
-neo-Victorian exotics and erotics: opium dens, prostitution, harems, concubinage
-neo-Victorian representations of race and bi-raciality
-Asian adaptations of nineteenth-century texts; neo-Victorian adaptations of Asian texts
-nineteenth-century borders and their conflicts past and present
-Asian texts that expand the chronology of the neo-Victorian
-theorising the ‘Asianisation’ of neo-Victorianism or the ‘neo-Victorianising’ of  Asia

Please address enquiries and expressions of interest to the guest editor, at lizho@ln.edu.hk. Abstracts, along with a short biographical note, will be due by 31 January 2016 and should be sent via email to the guest editor, with a copy to neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk. Successful submissions will be notified by 1 March 2016. Final articles and/or creative pieces and reviews will be due by 31 August 2016. Please consult the NVS website (submission guidelines) for further guidance.

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