Teaching Illustrations and Periodicals: Three Scholars Share Their Ideas and Materials

Abstract

If you set out to find scholars who bring radically different interests to the field of periodical scholarship, you would not have to look any farther than the three of us, which is partly why we decided to join forces for this submission. Leigh Dillard is an eighteenth-century scholar who works primarily in the history of the book and print culture; Nancy West is a Victorianist who moonlights in film studies; and Pat Okker specializes in nineteenth-century American literature, particularly the history of the periodical. As different as we are, however, we share an interest in teaching illustrations and the illustrated novel, particularly as they appeared in their original newspaper and magazine contexts. Leigh is committed to expanding the critical discussion of illustrated novels, which has been largely monopolized by Victorianists, by including works of the late eighteenth-century in her classroom and by pressing her students to see the connections between William Hogarth and a range of nineteenth-century writers beyond Dickens. She also regards the periodical as one of three important contexts-along with illustrations and the eighteenth-century anthology-that can broaden our approach to teaching the British novel. Nancy comes at the periodical through an interest in illustration as well; noting that graphic fiction forms a key component of many Victorian periodicals, she urges us to approach this genre with an eye toward media specificity and intertextuality. And Pat suggests that there are productive ways to teach students about images in periodicals even if you are not trained in visual theory or art history. We offer here assignments for three different, advanced undergraduate courses, all of which include periodicals and illustrated fiction as key components. We also include a syllabus for a graduate seminar.