Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom: Activism as Community-Building in Action

Abstract

This essay reflects on the first three years of Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom's work. While we initially perceived our project and corresponding website as a space to develop and circulate pedagogical materials, it has become clear that what we have accomplished since our launch goes far beyond mere content creation. In fact, the community-building portion of our project has become the driving force of our mission. For us, community-buildling is activism in action, as it allows us to change the conditions of academia in real time, by making intentional choices that foster more equitable interactions with one another and with our collaborators. Although the content we publish is, of course, important for ensuring Victorian studies centers questions of race, we view this content as the organic outgrowth of the careful and caring relationships we have been cultivating since our inception, commencing with the four of us and expanding outward to our contributors. Indeed, centering race in scholarship and teaching means little when students and teacher-scholars of color remain cast aside by academic norms, structures, and forms of relation that have been shaped by the increasingly commercialized neoliberal university.