Global Studies

Abstract

This entry shows how the intercultural transvaluation of actants and ideas often associated with Victorian Britain will be central to the development of Victorian Studies in global contexts made possible by new media. In addition to the global circulation of Victorian authors, works, and movements, the actants also include geopolitical ideologies such as individualism, collectivism, nationalism, internationalism, and cosmopolitanism; geopolitical institutions and state apparatuses such as modes of government and trade, legal systems, and armed services; and geopolitical commodities and technologies like textiles, tea, railways and sanitation systems. Part I explores these literary, institutional, and material actants. Parts 2 and 3 survey the global state of Victorian Studies in institutionalized and emergent forms.