Where Next in Victorian Literary Studies? – Historicism and Hospitality

Abstract

AbstractThis paper forms part of a Literature Compass cluster of articles which examines the current state of Victorian Literary Studies and future directions. This group of four essays was originally commissioned by Francis O’Gorman (University of Leeds), who also provides an introduction to the cluster.The full cluster is made up of the following articles:‘Where Next in Victorian Literary Studies? – Introduction’, Francis O’Gorman, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741‐4113.2007.00467.x.‘Where Next in Victorian Literary Studies? – Revising the Canon, Extending Cultural Boundaries, and the Challenge of Interdisciplinarity’, Joanne Shattock, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741‐4113.2007.00468.x.‘Where Next in Victorian Literary Studies? –“Interesting Times” and the Lesson of “A Corner in Lightning”’, David Amigoni, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741‐4113.2007.00469.x.‘Where Next in Victorian Literary Studies? – Historicism, Collaboration and Digital Editing’, Valerie Sanders, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741‐4113.2007.00470.x.‘Where Next in Victorian Literary Studies? – Historicism and Hospitality’, John Bowen, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741‐4113.2007.00471.x.***The field of Victorian Studies has been dominated by a historicist approach and methodology. Much of the most influential work in Victorian Studies could be summarised under the heading ‘historical research in culture’. Yet there are serious conceptual difficulties with such an historicist approach, in particular those identified in Martin Heidegger's seminal essay ‘The Age of the World Picture’ and by the exemplary work of Jacques Derrida, particularly his writings on the question of hospitality. In this article, I explore the hospitality of Victorian studies, both within nineteenth‐century texts and the hospitality of the field itself, to question the limits of the Victorian historicism to which we are accustomed. I argue that the lack of attention to European literary and philosophical work – my examples include the fiction of Gustave Flaubert, as well as the work of Heidegger and Derrida – mark particularly problematic limits to the hospitality of Victorian studies in its dominant historicist conceptions.