Franziska Kohlt | University of Leeds (original) (raw)

Talks & Conference Papers by Franziska Kohlt

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) was, contrary to popular belief, not written by an author... more Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) was, contrary to popular belief, not written by an author of
children’s novels, but by an academic, a mathematician, a man of science, a deacon of the Church of
England, a writer of academic satire. Consequently reflecting developments in Victorian science –
from evolutionary biology to psychiatric medicine – Alice was, likewise, not illustrated by a dedicated
‘children’s book illustrator’, but by one of the most eminent political caricaturists of his age, Sir John
Tenniel - whom Carroll knew and chose for his work at the Punch Magazine.
In the 20th and 21st century Alice remained political, and, like in Tenniel’s days, it is illustrators are
first in line to offer an interpretation of the text to the reader and lift Alice into the current cultural
and temporary context. Thus Alice has transformed into a post-war fashion icon and donned a sari
when exploring the wildlife of post-imperial India, or, most recently challenged class struggles,
poverty and child-abuse in American McGee’s video Game Alice: Madness Returns. However, in
these modern Alice’s it is rarely the author that challenges existing hierarchies, but the illustrator
who is one step ahead in identifying and visualising these tensions.
In this anniversary year, this paper will offer an exploration of social and political issues in 150 years
of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its textual and visual interpretations. On the example of
Alice: Madness Returns fathom how the tensions underlying Carroll’s and especially Tenniel’s Alice
lend themselves to modern interactive approaches to children’s literature. Thus it will engage with
the task modern illustrators face, of both challenging young readers, but also accommodating them
within the text as well as their ever-changing social environment, and thus break new grounds in the
field of children’s literature.

Victorian Children's Literature was, perhaps surprisingly, filled with scenes of dying and suffer... more Victorian Children's Literature was, perhaps surprisingly, filled with scenes of dying and suffering children, a reality many readers had to face in their own environment. However, searching for a sense in this, authors often gave those children fantastic dreams and visions, filled with mythological creatures which embodied ideas of death and dying, but also of nature, and for hope for rebirth eternal life. Thus stories like Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies or George MacDonald's At the back of the North Wind give amazing insights into the Victorian search for the meaning of life, the nature of the soul and man's place in creation.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a remarkable text which has endured as one of the world's mos... more Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a remarkable text which has endured as one of the world's most popular
children's classics - but is it really a children's book? Or perhaps much more than that? In an exploration of how the
genre of 'children's literature' emerged in the 19th century, and what Victorians considered appropriate literature
for the young, this talk will seek answers to this question in the kaleidoscopic landscape of Victorian Children's
Literature.

The Victorian age not only marked the rise of children’s literature but also of the importance of... more The Victorian age not only marked the rise of children’s literature but also of the importance of its illustrations. In the case of Alice, John Tenniel’s images offer us the first interpretation of Carroll’s published text, embed the story in its historical context. And indeed added another layer of meaning to the story, which, even surprised the author. This talk will explore the illustrations of Alice and other Victorian children’s literature, explore what artist’s influences and inspiration, and thus explore the important role of books with pictures and conversations for children.

Part of the "Alice, Science, and Narrative" Panel Alice Through the Ages, 15-17 September 2015 ... more Part of the "Alice, Science, and Narrative" Panel
Alice Through the Ages, 15-17 September 2015
Homerton College, Cambridge

"""The nineteenth century gave rise to many modern branches of science, amongst them the beginnin... more """The nineteenth century gave rise to many modern branches of science, amongst them the beginnings of neurology and psychology. Especially in England, theories on the mind and its workings, alternative states of consciousness and the visions they induced, thrived. Under great public interest in this matter, they, more or less scientifically, penetrated the realm hitherto reserved for the supernatural, which, at times, linked the emerging scientific theories to psychic phenomena and the paranormal.
These advancements left a profound impression not only on British, but also on Russian authors, such as Ivan Turgenev. During his frequent visits to England, he met and corresponded with the great figures of the literary-scientific milieu – from the versatile authors George Elliot and Charles Dickens, to publicists and scientists, including George Lewes and the mesmerist Elliotson. Closer analysis reveals, that, consequently, his and the works of his literary compatriots, unmistakably reflect contemporary scientific and pseudo-scientific theories, as well as tropes and motifs of the English Gothic, which crystallises in nineteenth century Russian realist, but most clearly in its fantastic fiction.
This paper aims to shed light on the interaction of literature and science, England and Russia. In particular, it will explore under consideration of relevant contemporary psychological and neurological theories, how the speculative potential of alternative states of consciousness is exploited as a narrative device, facilitating an outward and inward gaze at what is hidden from plain sight, allowing the authors to extend or undermine the principles of realist fiction. Through close textual analysis of such visions, ranging from Turgenev's prophetic “Dream”, the mesmeric English vampire in “Phantoms”, or the philosophic spectral self-reflections of Ivan Karamazov to further examples from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment as well as Turgenev's Fantastic Tales, whose protagonists all wander on the brink of human consciousness, this interdisciplinary paper aims to reveal the 'English Connection' of the works of two of Russia's most famous authors."""

"When Lefebvre argued, that any real existence and any idea produces space, he focused on the res... more "When Lefebvre argued, that any real existence and any idea produces space, he focused on the results of this productive process, as expressed and manifested in reality, in our own urban surroundings. But what ultimately lies at the core of his theories, is the creative potential of the human mind – an area in literature reserved for the fantastic, where ideas immediately create meaningful spaces, remote from reality, yet located within the mind.

How then does the real, manifest space, produced by the Victorian age and its ideas, correspond with those imaginary, parallel universes of its fantastic children's literature, often journeyed in liminal states of consciousness, such as dream or even near-death, presented through the eyes of a child-protagonist? In an age of rapid change, anxiety and search of identity for the human race in creation, the dynamic relationship of reality and the individual produces these imaginary
wonderlands: the journey becomes a quest for meaning, a re-enactment of the conflicts of the age, a literary stress reaction.

This paper offers an exploration of such wonderland-travels in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Kingsley's The Water-Babies and MacDonald's “The Golden Key”. It will focus on the psychological creation of space, the role of the traveller and explore structural and symbolic levels of meaning of the journey. It finally aims to show, how these timeless, and yet distinctly Victorian tales affected and influenced children's literature in the long term."

"“What is the fourth dimension?” was the title of an essay published by the eccentric scientist C... more "“What is the fourth dimension?” was the title of an essay published by the eccentric scientist Charles Howard Hinton in 1880 , a question that sparked a wave of scientific and
literary responses in Fin de Siécle Britain, an anxious society, left overwhelmed by an age of scientific quantum leaps.
Especially entangled in speculations over possible other dimensions became the young biology student Herbert George Wells, who should later be called “The Father of Science
Fiction”. In the 20 years following Hinton's article Wells produced not only The Time Machine, which dominates our literary understanding of the temporal fourth dimension to
the day, but also a number of short stories, that frequently escape the modern reader's attention.

In a unique way, Wells sends his protagonists on pilgrimages through scientific borderland: through magic crystals, death, dream and trance they access otherworlds, for which no
religious or scientific explanation seems to be adequate. They transcend the boundaries of the graspable world, life and reality. They are confronted with the past and the future, Heaven and Hell, they become stuck between the worlds, and often return to our reality changed: injured, broken, unable to cope with what they have seen.

Wells's narrative imitates actual alternative mental states, such as near death experience, coma, hypgnagogic phenomena or dream, and therefore locates the fourth dimension within and outside the self at the same time, and thus explores in a ultitude of ways possible answers to Hinton's question. By choosing the narrative form of the Short Story, he places the reader in the position to make a final statement, can this be science or is it merely fiction?"

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) was, contrary to popular belief, not written by an author... more Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) was, contrary to popular belief, not written by an author of
children’s novels, but by an academic, a mathematician, a man of science, a deacon of the Church of
England, a writer of academic satire. Consequently reflecting developments in Victorian science –
from evolutionary biology to psychiatric medicine – Alice was, likewise, not illustrated by a dedicated
‘children’s book illustrator’, but by one of the most eminent political caricaturists of his age, Sir John
Tenniel - whom Carroll knew and chose for his work at the Punch Magazine.
In the 20th and 21st century Alice remained political, and, like in Tenniel’s days, it is illustrators are
first in line to offer an interpretation of the text to the reader and lift Alice into the current cultural
and temporary context. Thus Alice has transformed into a post-war fashion icon and donned a sari
when exploring the wildlife of post-imperial India, or, most recently challenged class struggles,
poverty and child-abuse in American McGee’s video Game Alice: Madness Returns. However, in
these modern Alice’s it is rarely the author that challenges existing hierarchies, but the illustrator
who is one step ahead in identifying and visualising these tensions.
In this anniversary year, this paper will offer an exploration of social and political issues in 150 years
of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its textual and visual interpretations. On the example of
Alice: Madness Returns fathom how the tensions underlying Carroll’s and especially Tenniel’s Alice
lend themselves to modern interactive approaches to children’s literature. Thus it will engage with
the task modern illustrators face, of both challenging young readers, but also accommodating them
within the text as well as their ever-changing social environment, and thus break new grounds in the
field of children’s literature.

Victorian Children's Literature was, perhaps surprisingly, filled with scenes of dying and suffer... more Victorian Children's Literature was, perhaps surprisingly, filled with scenes of dying and suffering children, a reality many readers had to face in their own environment. However, searching for a sense in this, authors often gave those children fantastic dreams and visions, filled with mythological creatures which embodied ideas of death and dying, but also of nature, and for hope for rebirth eternal life. Thus stories like Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies or George MacDonald's At the back of the North Wind give amazing insights into the Victorian search for the meaning of life, the nature of the soul and man's place in creation.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a remarkable text which has endured as one of the world's mos... more Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a remarkable text which has endured as one of the world's most popular
children's classics - but is it really a children's book? Or perhaps much more than that? In an exploration of how the
genre of 'children's literature' emerged in the 19th century, and what Victorians considered appropriate literature
for the young, this talk will seek answers to this question in the kaleidoscopic landscape of Victorian Children's
Literature.

The Victorian age not only marked the rise of children’s literature but also of the importance of... more The Victorian age not only marked the rise of children’s literature but also of the importance of its illustrations. In the case of Alice, John Tenniel’s images offer us the first interpretation of Carroll’s published text, embed the story in its historical context. And indeed added another layer of meaning to the story, which, even surprised the author. This talk will explore the illustrations of Alice and other Victorian children’s literature, explore what artist’s influences and inspiration, and thus explore the important role of books with pictures and conversations for children.

Part of the "Alice, Science, and Narrative" Panel Alice Through the Ages, 15-17 September 2015 ... more Part of the "Alice, Science, and Narrative" Panel
Alice Through the Ages, 15-17 September 2015
Homerton College, Cambridge

"""The nineteenth century gave rise to many modern branches of science, amongst them the beginnin... more """The nineteenth century gave rise to many modern branches of science, amongst them the beginnings of neurology and psychology. Especially in England, theories on the mind and its workings, alternative states of consciousness and the visions they induced, thrived. Under great public interest in this matter, they, more or less scientifically, penetrated the realm hitherto reserved for the supernatural, which, at times, linked the emerging scientific theories to psychic phenomena and the paranormal.
These advancements left a profound impression not only on British, but also on Russian authors, such as Ivan Turgenev. During his frequent visits to England, he met and corresponded with the great figures of the literary-scientific milieu – from the versatile authors George Elliot and Charles Dickens, to publicists and scientists, including George Lewes and the mesmerist Elliotson. Closer analysis reveals, that, consequently, his and the works of his literary compatriots, unmistakably reflect contemporary scientific and pseudo-scientific theories, as well as tropes and motifs of the English Gothic, which crystallises in nineteenth century Russian realist, but most clearly in its fantastic fiction.
This paper aims to shed light on the interaction of literature and science, England and Russia. In particular, it will explore under consideration of relevant contemporary psychological and neurological theories, how the speculative potential of alternative states of consciousness is exploited as a narrative device, facilitating an outward and inward gaze at what is hidden from plain sight, allowing the authors to extend or undermine the principles of realist fiction. Through close textual analysis of such visions, ranging from Turgenev's prophetic “Dream”, the mesmeric English vampire in “Phantoms”, or the philosophic spectral self-reflections of Ivan Karamazov to further examples from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment as well as Turgenev's Fantastic Tales, whose protagonists all wander on the brink of human consciousness, this interdisciplinary paper aims to reveal the 'English Connection' of the works of two of Russia's most famous authors."""

"When Lefebvre argued, that any real existence and any idea produces space, he focused on the res... more "When Lefebvre argued, that any real existence and any idea produces space, he focused on the results of this productive process, as expressed and manifested in reality, in our own urban surroundings. But what ultimately lies at the core of his theories, is the creative potential of the human mind – an area in literature reserved for the fantastic, where ideas immediately create meaningful spaces, remote from reality, yet located within the mind.

How then does the real, manifest space, produced by the Victorian age and its ideas, correspond with those imaginary, parallel universes of its fantastic children's literature, often journeyed in liminal states of consciousness, such as dream or even near-death, presented through the eyes of a child-protagonist? In an age of rapid change, anxiety and search of identity for the human race in creation, the dynamic relationship of reality and the individual produces these imaginary
wonderlands: the journey becomes a quest for meaning, a re-enactment of the conflicts of the age, a literary stress reaction.

This paper offers an exploration of such wonderland-travels in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Kingsley's The Water-Babies and MacDonald's “The Golden Key”. It will focus on the psychological creation of space, the role of the traveller and explore structural and symbolic levels of meaning of the journey. It finally aims to show, how these timeless, and yet distinctly Victorian tales affected and influenced children's literature in the long term."

"“What is the fourth dimension?” was the title of an essay published by the eccentric scientist C... more "“What is the fourth dimension?” was the title of an essay published by the eccentric scientist Charles Howard Hinton in 1880 , a question that sparked a wave of scientific and
literary responses in Fin de Siécle Britain, an anxious society, left overwhelmed by an age of scientific quantum leaps.
Especially entangled in speculations over possible other dimensions became the young biology student Herbert George Wells, who should later be called “The Father of Science
Fiction”. In the 20 years following Hinton's article Wells produced not only The Time Machine, which dominates our literary understanding of the temporal fourth dimension to
the day, but also a number of short stories, that frequently escape the modern reader's attention.

In a unique way, Wells sends his protagonists on pilgrimages through scientific borderland: through magic crystals, death, dream and trance they access otherworlds, for which no
religious or scientific explanation seems to be adequate. They transcend the boundaries of the graspable world, life and reality. They are confronted with the past and the future, Heaven and Hell, they become stuck between the worlds, and often return to our reality changed: injured, broken, unable to cope with what they have seen.

Wells's narrative imitates actual alternative mental states, such as near death experience, coma, hypgnagogic phenomena or dream, and therefore locates the fourth dimension within and outside the self at the same time, and thus explores in a ultitude of ways possible answers to Hinton's question. By choosing the narrative form of the Short Story, he places the reader in the position to make a final statement, can this be science or is it merely fiction?"

BBC History Extra, 2023

On 14 January it's the 125th anniversary of the death of Lewis Carroll, mathematician, polymath, ... more On 14 January it's the 125th anniversary of the death of Lewis Carroll, mathematician, polymath, and author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. His book has captured our imaginations for over 150 years, and has been enjoyed around the world. But who was the man behind the beloved tale? And what made him so uniquely able to write a story that would stand the test of time?

Alice in Wonderland in Film and in Popular Culture, 2020

Victorian Comedy & Laughter: Rethinking the Page and the Stage, eds. Jane Darcy and Louise Lee (Palgrave), 2017

When Carroll asks in the first line of his 1862 poem “How shall I bet a poet?” he already answere... more When Carroll asks in the first line of his 1862 poem “How shall I bet a poet?” he already answered the question the title of his poem by inverting and thus undermining the aphorism ‘poeta nascitur non fit’ – the poet is born not made – highlighting the vacuum arising from Victorian tensions between seeming and being. The factors that influenced Lewis Carroll’s becoming a poet were as multitudinous as the settings that gave rise to them. From his early family life in a north English parsonage, to the satirical pamphlets at Oxford and his letters to children; he was clergyman’s son, brother of 11 siblings, don, deacon, mathematician, writer, photographer and inventor. However, Lewis Carroll was also a man of science, first, in gentlemanly fashion an amateur, but increasingly a thoroughly self-educated expert who amassed an impressive library of scientific volumes from natural sciences, medicine, botany to the emerging science of psychology. His interests extended from physiology to psychiatric photography. His interest in science constituted a significant part of his life, and thus, as much as his children’s fiction parodies its own genre, Carroll’s scientific satire is not only testimony to his sharp wit and literary skill, but also of his critical engagement with modern intellectual developments, and of his independent thought.
This essay will therefore investigate the aspect of science and humour in Carroll’s writings focusing, in particular, on his poetry and late fiction. It will explore how Carroll responds, with the humour that has made Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a classic. From kaleidoscopic representations of natural and medical sciences, mathematics and what the author considered ‘pseudo-Sciences’, it will trace the evolution of his literary nonsense from the much-neglected perspective of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson the scientist.

Journal of Victorian Culture

An analysis of the numerous connections of Lewis Carroll to the Victorian psychiatric profession ... more An analysis of the numerous connections of Lewis Carroll to the Victorian psychiatric profession reveals their significant influence on the portrayal of insanity in Carroll’s fiction. Through examining his relationship with his uncle Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, a Commissioner in Lunacy, and collating Carroll’s personal recollections from diaries and letters with correspondences of the Lunacy Commission, this article offers a comprehensive picture of Carroll’s multifaceted intellectual engagement with Victorian Psychiatry. Combining these insights with his literary writings illuminates the
psychiatric origins of the ‘Mad Tea-Party’ and characters such as the Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the organisation and methods of mid-Victorian Pauper Lunatic
Asylums and their treatment of impoverished workers. Likewise, the illustrations of Carroll’s works stood in dialogue with popular imagery of insanity as well as ideas of physiognomy and their diagnostic application in asylum photography by Hugh Welch Diamond. This piece
will argue that the framework of Victorian psychiatry provided Carroll with imagery he utilises to satirise aspects of Victorian moral values. It thus aims to highlight the benefits of
re-framing the works of Lewis Carroll beyond the genre children’s literature, and considering them as part of the wider Victorian discourse of the sciences of the mind.

Marvellous Mechanical Museum, 2018

The Royal Entomological Society, 2016

The Victorians were fascinated with insects. This is as obvious as it can be elusive, as insects ... more The Victorians were fascinated with insects. This is as obvious as it can be elusive, as insects themselves often are. The Victorians embraced insects for their beauty, their mystery, and their changeability – all aspects of utmost concern to this era of unprecedented change, cultural, technical, political as well as scientific. In constant search for their own identity, insects became uncanny ambassadors of Victorian culture, representative as well as unsettling, masquerading and revealing at once.

On a hot July day in 1872, Lewis Carroll, together with his friend the Pre-Raphaelite painter and... more On a hot July day in 1872, Lewis Carroll, together with his friend the Pre-Raphaelite painter and illustrator Arthur Hughes, took ‘a splendid walk to Fairyland.’ The mysteriously named woodland area near Guildford in Surrey was popular with Victorian artists and writers – not least because of alleged appearances of a spectral lady and a pursuing phantom horseman near the lake “Silent Pool” at the heart of the forest (which is, even today, still listed as one of Britain’s most haunted locations). According to Carroll himself, encountering fairies or other fantastic appearances on such walks was quite a straightforward matter, one just had to follow three simple rules...

Dickens on the Move: Travels and Transformations. (ISBN 978-3-631-64158-3), 2014

Liaisons Magazin für den Kulturdialog, Oct 2011

Lewis Carroll Review, Issue 48, ISSN 1364-8934, Oct. 2012, Oct 2012

Review of works as presented at the Oxford Literary Festival; The Lewis Carroll Review, June 201... more Review of works as presented at the Oxford Literary Festival; The Lewis Carroll Review, June 2015, #167.

The Lewis Carroll Review, Issue 50, p. 5-8, ISSN: 1464-8934, Jun 2013

A few weeks ago, I went to see "Peter and Alice", a play by John Logan presented by the Michael G... more A few weeks ago, I went to see "Peter and Alice", a play by John Logan presented by the Michael Grandage Company, at the Noel Coward Theatre in London, and when people asked me, whether I liked it, I didn't quite know how to respond.

Lewis Carroll Review, Issue 48, ISSN 1364-8934, Oct. 2012

Bandersnatch, Issue 152, Oct. 2011

The Lewis Carroll Review: The Reviewing Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society, 2022

The Lewis Carroll Review: The Reviewing Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society , 2021

Lewis Carroll Review; The Reviewing Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society, 2019

Lewis Carroll Review: The Reviewing Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society, 2012

The Lewis Carroll Review: The Reviewing Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society, 2018

Content: - Editor's Welcome (Franziska Kohlt) Alice and Satire Reviews - "Alice's Adventures ... more Content:
- Editor's Welcome (Franziska Kohlt) Alice and Satire
Reviews
- "Alice's Adventures in Punch", Andy Malcolm & George Walker (Dayna Nuhn)
- "Alice in Brexitland", Lucien Young (Kiera Vaclavik)
- "Theresa Maybe in Brexitland", Madeleina Kay (Franziska Kohlt)
"Five Questions"
- Five Questions for Lucien Young
- Five Questions for Madeleina Kay
Other Reviews:
- "Victorian Giants: The Art of Photography" (Exhibition Catalogue), Phillip Prodger & HRH the Duchess of Cambridge (James Lythgoe)
- "Mad about the Hatter", Dakota Chase (Geoffrey Budworth)
- "It's Always Tea Time" (Exhibition Catalogue), Vappu Thurlow (Lindsay Fulcher)
- "The Curious Case of Mary Ann", Jenn Thorson (Robert Stek)
- "A History of Children's Books in 100 Books", Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad (Selwyn Goodacre)

De Gruyter eBooks, Aug 7, 2023

Journal of Scottish Thought

University of Oxford, 2019

This thesis investigates the emergence of the Victorian fantastic dream vision and the discipline... more This thesis investigates the emergence of the Victorian fantastic dream vision and the discipline of psychology as sister phenomena. It explores the interconnections of the two fields through the work of author-scientists George MacDonald, Lewis Carroll, and Charles Kingsley and their literary portrayal of visions experienced in dream, illness and near death. Through substantial archival research, this thesis reconstructs these authors’ scientific biographies, particularly MacDonald’s study of science at Aberdeen, Carroll’s autodidactic study of physio-psychology, documented by his letters, diaries and library, and Kingsley’s knowledge of evolutionary psychology and sociology. There has been little historicist study of Victorian fantasy within its immediate scientific environment, and no extensive exploration of the fantastic in literature and science studies. Responding both to this absence, and to the claim of fantasy’s escapism, especially from ‘scientific possibility’, this thesis establishes fantastic literature as a primary medium for the epistemological discussion of the nature of consciousness. Situated within the contested realm of the psyche it held a striking position as synthesising agent and problem solver, contributing to the development and establishing of psychological ideas, from the subconscious and to dream phases. The thesis falls into three sections, examining respectively dream-narratives, morbid visions and death-visions. The first section examines dreams, introspective visions concerned with the individual, and the early works of MacDonald and Carroll in context of their nascent interest in early Victorian psychological theory. Its constituent chapters explore how Phantastes enacts the psychologically and intellectually curative function of the dream imagination, and how Alice adapts and mocks the dream-narrative to expose poor, and define ideal psychological development, through psychiatric imagery and performance science. The second section scrutinises morbid visions, phenomenological visions concerned with intellectual discourse, and the little-understood fin-de-siècle works of Carroll and MacDonald through their readings of evolutionary psychology and degeneration theory. Its chapters examine Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno novels and their treatment of the possibility of free will and moral actions in the dynamic system of unconscious moral influences, and MacDonald’s Lilith’s attempt to create a universal philosophy of mind through aligning paradigms of evolutionary psychology, geology, divine creation and an optical adaptation of the fourth dimension in response to fin-de-siècle epistemological anxieties, spiritualism and transcendentalism. The third section explores death visions, with their external focus, concerned with society and the future of mankind, which, most akin to the utopian tradition, exercised the greatest formal influence on early science fiction narratives. It studies Kingsley’s The Water-Babies and its radical scientific and sociological redefinitions of the soul and salvation in the context of the unnoted psychological thought of his natural history, theological and literary writings, and their commonalities with environmental socio-psychology. The conclusion summarises the reflective, discursive and projective ways in which the fantastic participated in the scientific psychological discourse, and how through its respective introspective, phenomenological or societal foci, it catered to different traditions beyond the bifurcation of fantasy and science fiction, the common origin of which can offer a fresh perspective upon their functions, meanings and potential beyond the literary.</p

Communal Discord, Child Abduction, and Rape in the Later Middle Ages, 2008

ABSTRACT We present Alice, a functional programming language that has been designed with strong s... more ABSTRACT We present Alice, a functional programming language that has been designed with strong support fortyped open programming. It incorporates concur- rency with data flow synchronisation, higher-order modularity, dynamic modules, and type-safe pickling as a minimal and generic set of simple, orthogonal features providing that support. Based on these mechanisms Alice offers a flexible notion of component, and high-level facilities for distributed programming.

Journal of Victorian Culture, 2016

AbstractAn analysis of the numerous connections of Lewis Carroll to the Victorian psychiatric pro... more AbstractAn analysis of the numerous connections of Lewis Carroll to the Victorian psychiatric profession reveals their influence on the portrayal of insanity in Carroll’s fiction. Through examining his relationship with his uncle Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, a Commissioner in Lunacy, and collating Carroll’s personal recollections from diaries and letters with correspondences of the Lunacy Commission, this article offers a comprehensive picture of Carroll’s intellectual engagement with Victorian psychiatry. Combining these insights with his literary writings illuminates the psychiatric origins of the ‘Mad Tea-Party’ and characters such as the Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the organization and methods of mid-Victorian pauper lunatic asylums and their treatment of impoverished workers. Likewise, the illustrations of Carroll’s works stood in dialogue with popular imagery of insanity as well as ideas of physiognomy and their diagnostic application in asylum photography by Hugh Welch Dia...

Narratives are crucial for understanding the world, making decisions within it, but may also dist... more Narratives are crucial for understanding the world, making decisions within it, but may also distort realities, and redirect actions in more damaging directions. This underlines their vital role in public health crisis. Studies of narrative in health crises have negatively assessed the overall impact of warfare rhetoric, judging according to discrepancies between projected and achieved outcomes. Yet the warfare narrative dominated the framing of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Through a historical alignment of Christian, military and national virtues, the warfare narrative provided a guiding framework for collective response to crisis, simultaneously hoping to reassure and ‘bring the Nation together’. The narrative, however, polarised British society, accentuating divisions and exacerbating political tensions coinciding with the pandemic. This article analyses the implications and effects that Covid-19 war narratives had on public life, and what their usage tells us abo...

Dickens on the Move: Travels and Transformations. (ISBN 978-3-631-64158-3), 2014

Our prices are recommended retail prices and are exclusive of shipping costs. We reserve the righ... more Our prices are recommended retail prices and are exclusive of shipping costs. We reserve the right to alter prices. We supply to libraries at a discount of 5%. * incl. VAT-only applies to Germany and EU customers without VAT Reg No ** incl. VAT-only applies to Austria

Narratives are crucial for understanding the world, making decisions within it, but may also dist... more Narratives are crucial for understanding the world, making decisions within it, but may also distort realities, and redirect actions in more damaging directions. This underlines their vital role in public health crisis. Studies of narrative in health crises have negatively assessed the overall impact of warfare rhetoric, judging according to discrepancies between projected and achieved outcomes. Yet the warfare narrative dominated the framing of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Through a historical alignment of Christian, military and national virtues, the warfare narrative provided a guiding framework for collective response to crisis, simultaneously hoping to reassure and ‘bring the Nation together’. The narrative, however, polarised British society, accentuating divisions and exacerbating political tensions coinciding with the pandemic. This article analyses the implications and effects that Covid-19 war narratives had on public life, and what their usage tells us abo...