Stefania Forlini

My primary area of research and teaching is late Victorian literature and culture, but my interest in science, thing theory, and techno-culture (the ways in which our use of new technologies transforms our world) often leads me to examine earlier Romantic texts and to look for resonances in late twentieth-century popular literature, especially gothic and/or science fiction. I am particularly interested in cultivating a cross-disciplinary and historically-comparative approach to fiction that engages with scientific and/or technological discourses as a means of interrogating shifting understandings of materiality. Beginning in the 2008-2009 academic year, I will broaden my work in material culture by exploring the figure of the collector through Bob Gibson's illustrated anthologies of collected science fiction stories (part of U of C's special collections) and through the examination of the increasingly popular material practice known as steampunk-a practice that defamiliarizes past and present in its refurbishing of contemporary technological objects so that they resemble Victorian objects. My secondary interests include critical theory, nineteenth and twentieth-century environmental writing, and recent Canadian women's writing. Beyond ensuring that students develop a solid base knowledge of a wide range of literary texts, theoretical orientations, and the social, political, and aesthetic concerns of literary studies, I hope to foster historical sensitivity and a profound appreciation for literature and to encourage students to adopt a critical stance towards past and present cultural production. I enjoy teaching in a variety of areas, including critical theory, Romantic, Victorian, and contemporary literature.