Centre for Studies in Literature (CSL)

Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

The Centre's research in the area of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture covers British, American, European and Indian writers. Members of this subject area are currently engaged in research projects on Victorian visual culture; the relationship between literature and C19th material culture; empire writing; colonial travel-writing; colonial and nationalist politics; early Indian fiction in English; science, evolutionary theory, and ecology; transatlantic literature, European literary decadence and fin-de-siècle culture; and women's writing.

Monographs have been published on Vernon Lee and Emily Dickinson, as well as edited collections on Vernon Lee, Neo-Victorian literature and Indian literature and politics from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Members of this group participate in the English seminar series and teach on the MA programmes.

Several researchers are also engaged in projects that focus on Portsmouth's rich literary history, drawing on its wealth of nineteenth-century resources such as the Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle collection at the Portsmouth City Museum, the Charles Dickens Birthplace and Museum, the City Archives and the Historic Dockyards. Work is ongoing on two major conferences to be held in Portsmouth. The first, on 'Transatlantic Decadence', took place on 24th April 2010; the second on 'The Other Dickens' will coincide with the bicentenary of his birth in 2012.

Researchers working in this area are:

• Charlotte Boyce
• Paraic Finnerty
• Mark Frost
• Christopher Pittard
• Patricia Pulham