Victorian Ecologies Today
Vcologies is an interdisciplinary, international collective of scholars committed to the environmental humanities, the energy humanities, and other ecology-focused approaches.
Congratulations to Diana R. Newby for winning the 2024 Early Career Prize for her paper “The Eco-Ethics of Non-Human Affect in Darwin and Hardy”
Our working assumption is that the humanities have crucial contributions to make toward the struggle for environmental justice and for a more environmentally responsible society.
“Vcologies” is a portmanteau of “Victorian ecologies,” reflecting our historical grounding in the long nineteenth century. We are guided by several broad inquiries:
+ How did concepts such as extinction, biodiversity, and ecology emerge from and shape nineteenth-century literature, science, and culture?
+ What do literary and cultural histories of the nineteenth century–the period of both rapid industrialization and imperial expansion–have to contribute to the shaping of environmental narratives today?
+ What are the implications of writing environmental histories in the ways that we do?
+ Can we imagine new forms of political action consonant with our political moment that build from our study of the nineteenth century?
The images on this page are cyanotypes excerpted from the work of Anna Atkins, a Victorian-era botanist who published Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in 1843. This volume is often considered to be the first book illustrated with photographic images. Atkins’ sensitive and prescient integration of technology, science, art, and nature serves as inspiration for the interdisciplinary pursuits of the vcologies collective. All images are in the public domain.