'Past recovery': The memory of the Victorian in the postimperial present (Sarah Waters)

This dissertation investigates the phenomenon of neo-Victorianism or, the ways in which the nineteenth century continues to influence the present, culturally, politically and imaginatively. Reading British and postcolonial texts produced in the last twenty years, I argue that the return to "the Victorian" has become one of the primary memorial practices associated with decolonization and the collapse of the British Empire. My dissertation theorizes around this "postimperial" moment less as a chronological fiction and more as a reconsideration of how postcolonial and postmodern cultural production do not necessarily address the ways in which "the Victorian's" reappearance stands for the unwillingness to let go of the centrality of empire in the imagination of nation.; In this postimperial context, neo-Victorianism re-reads specific nineteenth-century events as responsible for damaging our contemporary relationship to the future. Depending on where one stands, temporally and physically, in relation to the retreat of empire, the nostalgic, melancholic or traumatic "structure of relation to the past," which impedes the imagination of future time, will require negotiation and change. The structures of relation to the nineteenth-century past charted by neo-Victorian texts can be read as a social index of dis-ease in the present. By situating the cultural memory of what is "Victorian" against contemporary issues and concerns, neo-Victorianism seeks a "therapeutic" recovery from the past, as well as a recovery of the past.; Each one of my chapters addresses how popular cultural inscriptions of "the Victorian" are mobilized to effect change in the present and explores the imaginary work that neo-Victorian texts perform in their geopolitical and temporal contexts. Chapter One reads recent historical fiction about Jack the Ripper as a figure of traditional definitions of "Englishness" who continues to circulate despite a more inclusive, multicultural "British" national identity. Next, I investigate how Sarah Waters's neo-Victorian historical fiction offers a fictional resource for defining contemporary lesbian identities. Turning outwards towards empire, my third chapter addresses the trauma of convictism underlying Australian nationalism. Finally, I explore the ways in which a return to "the Victorian" can help negotiate the contradictory character of Hong Kong's "post" colonial transition.