21st on 19th: The Victorian Era in Contemporary Culture

elective courses

Elective course for BA students.

Students registering for the course already have knowledge of the crucial historical, cultural and literary events of the Victorian era.

The aim of the course is to examine current perceptions of nineteenth-century England, especially of the Victorian era and the way it influenced contemporary culture. The subjects discussed include various attitudes towards Victorianism: anti-Victorianism, reconstructions of Victorian reality, sentimental approach or Neo-Victorianism. Popular culture, represented by the cinema, TV, reality history documentaries, or the Internet, constitutes an important element of the course.

The course will analyse contemporary views of the Victorian culture, especially those depicted in popular culture. Various points of view will be presented, and main groups of topics include:

1. An overview of the most crucial changes that took place in the 19th century

2. The way those changes influenced later generations (What the Victorians did for us, BBC 2001)

3. Modernist anti-Victorianism, thatcherite Victorian Values vs. growing sentimentalisation of the era

4. Pseudo-Victorian market: The Internet, The best of Mrs Beeton's Household Tips (2006), etc.

5. "Reliving" Victorian everyday life: Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shrophire, The Supersizers Go... Victorian, BBC 2008; Victorian Farm, BBC 2009; Victorian Pharmacy, BBC 2010

6. Film adaptations of classic novels and the way they influence current perception of the Victorian era

7. The second life of Victorian people and characters: e.g. Queen Victoria, Sherlock Holmes

8. Neo-Victorianism

9. Steampunk

The best of Mrs Beeton's Household Tips. BCA, 2006

Blists Hill Victorian Town. Souvenir Guidebook. 2011

Strachey, Lytton. Eminent Victorians. (1918)

film and TV adaptations, documentaries:

The Supersizers Go... Victorian. BBC, 2008

Victorian Farm. BBC, 2009

Victorian Pharmacy. BBC, 2010

The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff. BBC, 2011-2012.

Dickensian. BBC, 2016.

selected secondary sources:

Bowser, Rachel A., Brian Croxall. "Introduction: Industrial Evolution" Neo-Victorian Studies 3:1, 2010

Caroll, Samantha J. "Putting the 'Neo' Back into Neo-Victorian: The Neo-Victorian Novel as Postmodern Revisionist Fiction". Neo-Victorian Studies 3:2, 2010

Geraghty, Christine. "Narrative and Characterization in Classic Adaptations: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Pride and Prejudice". Now a Major Motion Picture. Film Adaptations of Literature and Drama. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008

Hadley, Louisa. "Feminine Endings: Neo-Victorian Transformations of the Victorian". Victorian Transformations. Ashgate, 2011

Hadley, Louisa. Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative. The Victorians and Us. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Heilmann, Ann, Mark Llewellyn. Neo-Victorianism. The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999-2009. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Houghton, Walter E.. The Victorian Frame of Mind. Yale U.P., 1976.

Joyce, Simon. The Victorians in the Rearview Mirror. Ohio University Press, 2007

Krawczyk-Łaskarzewska, Anna. "Soaped in Translation: Bleak House, the BBC, and the Populist Imperative". Literature and/in culture. KUL, 2008

Kucich, John, Dianne F. Sadoff (eds.). Victorian Afterlife. Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century. University of Minnesota Press, 2000

Nevins, Jess. "Introduction: The 19th-Century Roots of Steampunk", Steampunk, VanderMeer Jeff, Ann VanderMeer. (eds.) San Francisco, 2008

Nicieja, Stankomir. "Reinventing the Past: 'Victorian Values' in the Times of Thatcherism". From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria. Readings in 18th and 19th century British literature and culture. vol. 2. Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2010

Sulmicki, Maciej. "Why Do We Need Neo-Victorian Fiction? A Survey of the Functions Served by British Novels Looking Back to the Nineteenth Century." Acta Philologica, vol. 39, Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2011

Tucker, Herbert F. (ed.). A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. Blackwell Publishing, 2006

VanderMeer, Jeff, S. J. Chambers. The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature. New York, 2011

Pre-2022/2023 enrolment

By the end of the course:

- Ss will have acquired the knowledge of the contemporary perceptions of the Victorian era

- Ss will be able to analyse and present issues relevant for the understanding of the Victorian era as depicted in the 21st-century discourse

- Ss will have learned and practiced vocabulary used in academic discourse while discussing film adaptations and popular culture

- Ss will be able to apply the methodology presented throughout the course to discuss Neo-Victorian texts.

Education at language level B2+.

In class discussions students acquire skills of expressing their thoughts in a clear, coherent, logical and precise manner, with the use of language which is correct grammatically, lexically and phonetically.

2022/23 enrolment

Knowledge: the graduate will be able to

K_W02 understand key terminology, well established methods and theories of adaptation studies

K_W03 describe methodology and recent developments in (neo)Victorian studies

K_W05 list the characteristics of English grammar, syntax, phonology, phonetics, morphology and pragmatics on an advanced level P6S_WG

K_W07 explain principles of designing adaptation studies, with special focus on selecting appropriate methods and tools in formulating research questions

Abilities: the graduate is able to

K_U01 employ the terminology and methodological tools from culture studies

K_U02 employ the methodology of culture studies within English studies, respecting the ethical norms and copyright law

K_U04 implement knowledge to describe a problem and identify means to solve it, thereby completing a project in Victorian studies

K_U11 design one’s own development

Social competences: the graduate is ready to

K_K02 undertake life-long learning and personal development, applying skills and competences to select subjects and projects within the course

K_K03 value responsibility for one’s own work and respect the work of others, adhering to the professional and ethical norms in various projects and other activities undertaken during the course

Attendance, preparation for the classes, participation in discussions, presentations. Course credit: oral exam.

Two absences are allowed.

Retake exam has the same format as the exam.