The Research Network

The Victorian Diversities Research Network, founded in 2023, will change public perceptions of historical British culture by recuperating and promoting nineteenth-century writers of colour, and it will play an important role in shaping and developing an inclusive approach to Victorian literary studies by exploring new methodologies for reading the literature of race and empire in commonwealth countries. We received AHRC-funding in 2024 to support our Network activities.

The Network runs a monthly online Reading Group alongside additional events to bring together various strands of anti-colonial work and challenge the dominant perceptions of nineteenth-century literary history and culture. It will provide a nexus for colleagues in different countries, disciplines, and professions who can share expertise and experience of decolonising and diversifying. And, it will engage with local readers and schools to contribute to the development of an inclusive and cohesive society that values multiculturalism by reflecting better the long history of literary diversity within British society.

Decolonising Research

Roundtable Event about decolonising research practices, 10th March 2023 in association with Decolonising the Discipline.

Speakers: Lars Atkin (Kent), Éadaoin Agnew (Kingston), Nicole King (Oxford), Shazia Jagot and Alexandra Kingston-Rees (York), and the event was convened by the Institute of English Studies.

Diversifying Victorian Studies

Roundtable Event about Diversifying Victorian Studies: From Theory to Method 12th April 2022 in association with English Association, Institute of English Studies, University of East Anglia, Postcolonial Studies Association, and University English. 

Speakers: Lars Atkin (University of Kent), Éadaoin Agnew (Kingston University), Ryan Fong (Kalamazoo University), Chloe Osborne (Royal Holloway University of London), Emma Barnes (University of Salford), Kaori Nagai (University of Kent)

Unsettling Victorian Studies

Workshop hosted by VDRN and University of Bristol, July 2023.

Speakers from across the UK, Europe and the US gathered to present innovative new research on the global nineteenth-century. Crossing borders, both disciplinary and geographical, the papers examined crime fiction in colonial Bengal, Indian women’s periodicals, race, gender and age in Victorian literature, black British performance culture,  and settler colonialism within Britain. In the closing round table, Ross Foreman (Warwick), Adrian Wisnicki (Nebraska-Lincoln), Fariha Shaikh (Birmingham), Emma Barnes (Salford), Kaori Nagai (Kent) and Billie Gavurin (Bristol) spoke passionately about the ethical and pedagogical pay-offs of teaching a truly global nineteenth-century studies.