Neo-Victorian Cultural Collections of Disability Interdisciplinary Interventions

This book offers new readings and interpretations of the non-normative narratives of ‘freak show’ performers in the Victorian period as they have been reimagined by contemporary fictions, museum exhibitions and other aspects of the heritage experience. The growth of scholarly interest in institutional histories has been mapped by a surge of neo-Victorian fiction about historical performers with disabilities, supported by scholarship in response to these representations. This study offers the first extensive analysis of the continued display of the bodies and artefacts of historical figures linked to the freak show, and the significant theoretical connections between these displays and broader cultural and fictional representations. It argues that museum displays, archives and fictional adaptations intersect through a much more complex and intriguing dialogue than has previously been identified, shedding light on the way in which historical disability functions in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Visual Art, Disability and Museum Culture in Neo-Victorianism.- Chapter 3: Alternative Archives: Approaching Museum Collections through Neo-Victorian Fiction.- Chapter 4: Behind the Vitrine Glass’: Revisiting Approaches to the Textual and Material Display of Sarah Baartman and Julia Pastrana.- Chapter 5: “Monster Men” and the Ethics of Display: The Afterlife of Charles Byrne ‘The Irish Giant’.- Chapter 6: The Case of Joseph Merrick: Fictionalising Disability in the Museum Space.- Chapter 7: ‘In Full Voice’: Narrating the Giant Female Body in Heritage Practices.- Chapter 8: Afterword.

Louise Logan-Smith is Associate Lecturer in English Studies and Tutor of Creative Writing at Teesside University, UK, where she teaches modules on literary culture in the twenty-first century, creative writing, and Victorian and Neo-Victorian literature.