CFP: Education and Victorian Sensation Fiction

Editors: Andrew Green & Jessica Cox (Brunel University)

Publisher: Routledge

Series Aims

The aim of the Routledge Literature & Education series is to address the multiple ways in which education and literature interact. This includes:

1. notions of how literary texts function educatively or what happens to them once they are brought into educational spaces and used for educational purposes
2. the ways in which literary texts deal with the philosophical idea of literature as a function of education (i.e. literature and the literary as natural products of education)
3. education as a function of literature (i.e. literary texts as in themselves an educative medium with explicit – or less explicit – educational intentions).

The intention of this series is, therefore, to consider in a generous sense the different ways in which literature and education interact.

We are proposing an edited volume considering a range of ways in which Victorian sensation fiction relates to these ideas.

With this in mind, we are interested in generating proposal ideas from authors for inclusion in such a volume. We are looking for proposed chapters falling in two main sections:

Section 1: Education and Learning in Sensation Fiction

Chapters in this section might deal with issues such as – but not limited to:

• the sensation novel and Victorian educational debates/legislation
• representations of educational environments (e.g. schoolrooms, schools, lecture halls, etc.)
• representations of educators (e.g. governesses, tutors, teachers, tutors, scholars, etc.)
• representations of learners
• the idea of the detective figure as both learner and educator
• the role of textual materials in the texts that ‘educate’
• ways in which the texts themselves educate their readers (e.g. on points of law)
• ways in which characters seek deliberately to mis-educate or are mis-educated
• framing of the genre’s educative capacity in relation to contemporary social developments (e.g. changing views on womanhood, the rise of the detective police force, urban expansion, etc.)
• the potentially dangerous nature of the genre (e.g. ethical issues, the framing of society and societal views)
• ways in which the texts present new views of issues and thus make them subjects for educational and learned debate (e.g. developing views of womanhood)
• publication practices (e.g. the role of Victorian journals and their broader educational and social functions)
• books, literacy and illiteracy
• women and education
• ideas of ‘dangerous’ knowledge
• gendered education
• scientific knowledge

Section 2 – Sensation Fiction in Education

Chapters in the section might deal with issues such as – but not limited to:

• sensation fiction and the school curriculum (primary, GCSE, A level)
• adapting sensation fiction for younger readers (e.g. abridged, dramatised or screen versions)
• consideration of contemporary reworkings of sensation fiction for young adult readership, such as Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart trilogy of novels
• adaptations of sensation fiction for the screen and other media
• sensation fiction and the HE curriculum
• sensation fiction and canonical literature
• sensation fiction and literary theory
• teaching sensation fiction in HE.

We ask that interested authors submit a 300 word abstract of their proposed chapter along with a short Author Biography (50-100 words). This should be sent to Andrew Green (Andrew.green@brunel.ac.uk) and Jessica Cox (jessica.cox@brunel.ac.uk) by Wednesday 31^st July 2024.