Graduate Student, English and Related Literature
Thesis Title: 'Death Commodities in Nineteenth-Century Literature'
Prof. John Bowen
About
Having previously obtained degrees in English and Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture (BA hons., MA, York), I am now working on a PhD project that explores the concept of ‘death commodities’, primarily in the work of Charles Dickens. The 1832 Anatomy Act curtailed the body-snatchers’ literal trade in corpses, and this is used as a starting point to examine the more subtle permutations of the corpse as a commodity in the Victorian marketplace. My project incorporates discussion of fictional representations of the funeral and mourning industry; instances of trading on corpses; material artefacts of death such as relics and memento mori; and the use of death as a device to engross readers and increase circulation. Readings of Dickens’s texts are enhanced by prose and poetry selections from other writers, including Thomas Hood, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry Mayhew, and Thomas Hardy.
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