Neo-Victorianism on Screen: Postfeminism and Contemporary Adaptations of Victorian Women(Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture)

This book broadens the scope of inquiry of neo-Victorian studies by focusing primarily on screen adaptations and appropriations of Victorian literature and culture. More specifically, this monograph spotlights the overlapping yet often conflicting drives at work in representations of Victorian heroines in contemporary film and TV. Primorac’s close analyses of screen representations of Victorian women pay special attention to the use of costume and clothes, revealing the tensions between diverse theoretical interventions and generic (often market-oriented) demands. The author elucidates  the push and pull between postcolonial critique and nostalgic, often Orientalist spectacle; between feminist textual interventions and postfeminist media images. Furthermore, this book examines neo-Victorianism’s relationship with postfeminist media culture and offers an analysis of the politics behind onscreen treatment of Victorian gender roles, family structures, sexuality, and colonial space.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: Neo-Victorianism on Screen and Postfeminist Media Culture.- 2. Postfeminism and Screen Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes Stories: The Case of Irene Adler.- 3. Re-presenting the Past: Gender, Colonial Space, and Cultural Nostalgia in Neo-Victorianism on Screen.- 4. Caged Birds: Corsets, Cages and Embowered Women in Contemporary Victoriana on Screen.- 5. Re-Fashioning Victorian Heroines and Family Relations: Tailoring and Shape-Shifting as Queer Adaptation and Appropriation.- 6. Conclusion: No Country for Old Women.- 7. Index.

About the Author :
Antonija Primorac is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Croatia. Antonija co-edited the 2015 special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies entitled Neo-Victorianism and Globalisation: Transnational Dissemination of Nineteenth-Century Cultural Texts. She has published on adaptation, neo-Victorianism, postcolonial studies, feminist theory, Canadian literature and literature in translation.

Review :
“Neo-Victorianism on Screen is a thoroughly researched and well-argued treatise on the role of the Victorian heroine in modern film. … I found Primorac’s text to be thought-provoking, engaging, thoroughly considered, and well-written.” (Katrina Healey, The Wilkie Collins Journal, wilkiecollinssociety.org, Vol. 18, 2021) “Primorac’s monograph is a timely and thought-provoking study in so far as it not only discloses the major role TV and film adaptations have played in defining twenty-first-century conceptualizations of Victorian femininity but also, and perhaps even more importantly, addresses a striking imbalance in the field of neo-Victorian studies at large.” (Marlena Tronicke, Symbolism, October, 2018)​