Dissertation
From Kant’s distinction between ergon and parergon through to the modernist desire for clean and simple forms, ornament has been both dismissed as superficial and condemned as obfuscating. But in “The Ornamental Novel: Surface, Periphery, Excess in the Nineteenth Century,” I argue that Victorian thinkers imbued ornament with aesthetic, psychological, and even ethical significance, and show how the kind of difficult looking demanded by decorative design helped to shape the nineteenth-century novel. Novelists of this period -- including George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, and Henry James -- named novels and characters after decorative objects or patterns; their narratives engage meaningfully with architecture or bric-a-brac shops; they wrote passionate polemics for ornament as a means of beautifying the everyday. These novelists drew upon the decorative arts to produce distinct narrative and aesthetic effects. Some of these novels are structured peripherally, deploying sub-plots and accessorial characters to manage ideas that cannot be represented in the narrative center. In other cases, these novels negotiate a complex relationship between their superficial style and their deep matters, and demand a doubled attention to surface and structure in order to be appraised. In each case, these authors use ornamental language to consider how art tries to capture experience, and what topics may elude the novel’s formal boundaries.
Papers
"Ornament and Distraction: Peripheral Aesthetics in the Nineteenth Century." Victorian Literature and Culture. 45.2 (2017).
“Apple Pips, Fruit Stains, and Clammy Juice: Nature’s Ornaments and the Aesthetics of Preservation in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders.” (forthcoming in Nineteenth-Century Literature)
“‘Giving Way’ to the World: Distraction and Sociability in Jane Austen’s Persuasion” (forthcoming in Persuasions)
“‘Embracing infinite relations:’ Sensuous Socialism and the Aesthetics of Solidarity in Aurora Leigh” (under preparation)
Professional Talks
“Apple Pips, Fruit Stains, and Clammy Juice: Nature’s Ornaments in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders.” NAVSA Conference 2018 (“Looking Outward”). October 2018, St. Petersburg, FL (title changed from program).
“Blurring Boundaries: William Morris and the Aesthetics of Diffusion.” MLA Conference 2016 (“William Morris and the Legacy of Socialist Aesthetics”). January 2016, Austin.
“Whim and Whimsical Representation in Victorian Culture.” NAVSA Conference 2015 (“Victorians in the World”) July 2015, Honolulu.
“Scroff, Murder, and other Side Effects in Thomas Hardy’s Novels.” NVSA Conference 2015 (“Victorian Accidents”) April 2015, Providence.
“Essentially Incidental States and Byproducts: Hardy’s Aesthetics of Dust.” International Conference on Narrative. March 2015, Chicago.
“Ornament and ‘Bad Form:’ the Aesthetics of Distraction in the Nineteenth Century.” Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (VSAO) Annual Meeting (“‘Too Little, Too Late;’ Decadence and Incompleteness in the Victorian Era.”) April 2014, Toronto.
“Ornament and ‘Bad Form:’ the Aesthetics of Distraction in the Nineteenth Century.” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting (“Small, Finite, and Furnished: Fictional Capital and the Theory of Fictionality”). March 2014, New York.
“Peripheral Attention and Narration.” International Conference on Narrative. March 2014, Massachusetts.
“The Corner of the Eye: Peripheral Attention and Flirtation in Jane Austen's Persuasion”American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting (“Attention’s Forms”) April 2013, Toronto.
From Kant’s distinction between ergon and parergon through to the modernist desire for clean and simple forms, ornament has been both dismissed as superficial and condemned as obfuscating. But in “The Ornamental Novel: Surface, Periphery, Excess in the Nineteenth Century,” I argue that Victorian thinkers imbued ornament with aesthetic, psychological, and even ethical significance, and show how the kind of difficult looking demanded by decorative design helped to shape the nineteenth-century novel. Novelists of this period -- including George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, and Henry James -- named novels and characters after decorative objects or patterns; their narratives engage meaningfully with architecture or bric-a-brac shops; they wrote passionate polemics for ornament as a means of beautifying the everyday. These novelists drew upon the decorative arts to produce distinct narrative and aesthetic effects. Some of these novels are structured peripherally, deploying sub-plots and accessorial characters to manage ideas that cannot be represented in the narrative center. In other cases, these novels negotiate a complex relationship between their superficial style and their deep matters, and demand a doubled attention to surface and structure in order to be appraised. In each case, these authors use ornamental language to consider how art tries to capture experience, and what topics may elude the novel’s formal boundaries.
Papers
"Ornament and Distraction: Peripheral Aesthetics in the Nineteenth Century." Victorian Literature and Culture. 45.2 (2017).
- This essay received the Boston Ruskin Prize, awarded annually to the best essay on the life, work, or interests of John Ruskin
“Apple Pips, Fruit Stains, and Clammy Juice: Nature’s Ornaments and the Aesthetics of Preservation in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders.” (forthcoming in Nineteenth-Century Literature)
“‘Giving Way’ to the World: Distraction and Sociability in Jane Austen’s Persuasion” (forthcoming in Persuasions)
“‘Embracing infinite relations:’ Sensuous Socialism and the Aesthetics of Solidarity in Aurora Leigh” (under preparation)
Professional Talks
“Apple Pips, Fruit Stains, and Clammy Juice: Nature’s Ornaments in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders.” NAVSA Conference 2018 (“Looking Outward”). October 2018, St. Petersburg, FL (title changed from program).
“Blurring Boundaries: William Morris and the Aesthetics of Diffusion.” MLA Conference 2016 (“William Morris and the Legacy of Socialist Aesthetics”). January 2016, Austin.
“Whim and Whimsical Representation in Victorian Culture.” NAVSA Conference 2015 (“Victorians in the World”) July 2015, Honolulu.
“Scroff, Murder, and other Side Effects in Thomas Hardy’s Novels.” NVSA Conference 2015 (“Victorian Accidents”) April 2015, Providence.
“Essentially Incidental States and Byproducts: Hardy’s Aesthetics of Dust.” International Conference on Narrative. March 2015, Chicago.
“Ornament and ‘Bad Form:’ the Aesthetics of Distraction in the Nineteenth Century.” Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (VSAO) Annual Meeting (“‘Too Little, Too Late;’ Decadence and Incompleteness in the Victorian Era.”) April 2014, Toronto.
“Ornament and ‘Bad Form:’ the Aesthetics of Distraction in the Nineteenth Century.” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting (“Small, Finite, and Furnished: Fictional Capital and the Theory of Fictionality”). March 2014, New York.
“Peripheral Attention and Narration.” International Conference on Narrative. March 2014, Massachusetts.
“The Corner of the Eye: Peripheral Attention and Flirtation in Jane Austen's Persuasion”American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting (“Attention’s Forms”) April 2013, Toronto.
