제국의 시민권: 2020년과 19세기 영국문학 연구

Abstract

This essay examines recent scholarship on imperialism and citizenship in nineteenth-century British literature. Against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter Movement of 2020, events that prompted worldwide discussions on citizenship rights and racial (in)justice, this essay interrogates the relative scarcity of scholarship on citizenship in the subfield of nineteenth-century British literature. Drawing on the postcolonial insight of the North American journal Victorian Studies’s widely-discussed special issue for Spring 2020 titled “Undisciplining Victorian Studies,” this essay argues that studies on nineteenth-century citizenship requires an interdisciplinary approach connecting the achievements of diverse disciplines encompassing history, political science, sociology, and more. In the nineteenth century, the British people understood themselves as “British subjects” rather than citizens, which was not yet a concept fully legally embraced though the definition of citizenship was being actively developed in other contexts. Historically, discussions of British national citizenship focused on suffrage, which inevitably emphasized class as the central question. This essay proposes that gender and race deserve more scholarly attention, especially through an expanded understanding of a British imperial citizenship that can encompass more kinds of social belonging beyond the right to vote. The essay concludes by raising the the question of academic citizenship in order to highlight the importance of the inclusion and participation of scholars from both formerly colonized parts of the world and outside the British Empire.