Abstract:The opening chapter introduces and contextualizes the politics and poetics of Victorian surfaces. First, we delineate the increasing interests in both natural and constructed surfaces by taking a closer look at discourses that reflect a growing fascination with surfaces, including (pseudo-)medical treatises on physiognomy. Secondly, we focus on the politics of surface readings by scrutinizing the politics of various visual representations of Queen Victoria and the (self-)fashioning of the body politic at the c… Show more
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