Christina Flotmann Scholz Libros

‘Victorian’ is often used synonymously with ‘outdated’ today. However, some of the ideologies underlying contemporary social structures still seem to be heavily influenced by 19th-century thinking. The volume looks at Victorian and contemporary ‘texts’ to explore this ideological continuity. Apart from Neo-Victorian novellas, comics and TV series which openly take up Victorian concerns, the articles also foreground contemporary material less obviously ‘Victorian’, such as advertisements or the novels of the ‘black male underclass’. At the same time the contributors show how texts from both eras can also contain ‘structures of feeling’ which contradict dominant Victorian ideologies. Topics discussed range from gender, class and ethnicity to questions of seriality, spatiality and spirituality–issues significant both during the Victorian period and after. The volume also features an interview with British author and academic Patricia Duncker on how the Victorians and Victorianism have shaped her life and writings.

The study combines theories of myth, popular culture, structuralism and poststructuralism to explain the enormous appeal of »Star Wars« and »Harry Potter«. Although much research already exists on both stories individually, this book is the first to explicitly bring them together in order to explore their set-up and the ways in which their structures help produce ideologies on gender and ethnicity. Hereby, the comparison yields central insights into the workings of modern myth and uncovers structure as integral to the success of the popular genre. It addresses academic audiences and all those wishing to approach the tales from a fresh angle.