Conference organisation by Akira Suwa
This article argues that darkness contributes to the creation of, and expands the concept of, het... more This article argues that darkness contributes to the creation of, and expands the concept of, heterotopias. In Sarah Waters’s neo-Victorian trilogy, consisting of Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999), and Fingersmith (2002), her characters utilize darkness as their queer heterotopic space in order to call into question dominant heteronormative ideologies. Darkness plays an important role at the inception of the characters’ romantic relationships by facilitating space that allows their non-normative feelings to be expressed, thereby bringing queer desire to the forefront of each narrative. Darkness is a critical factor that renders a space heterotopic, as it blurs the boundary between heteronormative and queer, hence allowing transgression of the characters within Waters’s novels. Within queer heterotopic space created out of the darkness, there is a confluence of opposing values that enables the characters to examine the possibility of transcending heteronormativity and envisioning queer futures.
The Victorian age saw the emergence of ‘modern’ consumer culture: in urban life, commerce, litera... more The Victorian age saw the emergence of ‘modern’ consumer culture: in urban life, commerce, literature, art, science and medicine, entertainment, the leisure and tourist industries. The expansion and proliferation of new mass markets and inessential goods opened up pleasurable and democratising forms of consumption while also raising anxieties about urban space, the collapse of social and gendered boundaries, the pollution of domestic and public life, the degeneration of the moral and social health of the nation. This conference is concerned with the complexity and diversity of Victorian consumer cultures and also seeks to consider our contemporary consumption of the Victorian/s.
Keynotes: Christina Bashford (Illinois) & Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck)
Neo-Victorian Plenary: Patricia Duncker (Manchester)
We welcome proposals for individual papers, and encourage proposals for panels (3-paper sessions).
Selected Publications by Akira Suwa
Assuming Gender, 2017
This special issue of Assuming Gender seeks to examine and problematise the relationship between ... more This special issue of Assuming Gender seeks to examine and problematise the relationship between consumer culture and gender—but what does it mean to be a ‘consumer’ of gender, or a gendered consumer? More than ever before, we define ourselves through the things we buy, and the ways in which we buy them. This theoretically gives us a certain degree of agency, transforming the act of buying (or refusing to buy) into a political or ideological statement. As many scholars have argued in recent years, however, the use of considering the ‘individual consumer’ an autonomous political entity is limited. Consumer identity is intersectional and highly complex, and must be regarded as a nexus of competing and often contradictory influences.
Papers by Akira Suwa
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Conference organisation by Akira Suwa
Keynotes: Christina Bashford (Illinois) & Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck)
Neo-Victorian Plenary: Patricia Duncker (Manchester)
We welcome proposals for individual papers, and encourage proposals for panels (3-paper sessions).
Selected Publications by Akira Suwa
Papers by Akira Suwa
Keynotes: Christina Bashford (Illinois) & Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck)
Neo-Victorian Plenary: Patricia Duncker (Manchester)
We welcome proposals for individual papers, and encourage proposals for panels (3-paper sessions).