PhD Studentship: Naturalism, modernism and the city - 1880-1930

12,500 per annum (including 1000 research expenses budget) and

tuition fees for 3 years

The University of Northampton invites applications for a three year full-time

studentship investigating how British and American fiction from the 1880s to the
1930s informs modern perceptions of urban space and the lives of city-dwellers.

From the Paris of Emile Zola to Richard Wrights pre-war Chicago, naturalistic
writers have depicted the predicaments of those who have made their home in
the city. Facets of urban life have been shown as cultural markers in the
development of the change in human relationships as societies evolved from
isolated agrarian communities into urbanised conglomerations. Many late
nineteenth-century writers believed that the city was responsible for a change in
behaviour patterns. Urbanisation, industrialisation and mechanisation meant
that people were moving to the cities to find work; therefore, demographics
were also changing, especially as women were becoming independent wage-
earners. The city itself had become another environmental determinant.
The slum fiction of late-Victorian England paved the way for the proletarian
fiction of the inter-war years, (which then became the kitchen-sink dramas of
post-war Britain). Similarly, much American naturalist fiction was concerned with
the pervasive influence of the metropolitan lifestyle. As the twentieth century
unfolded, American naturalism was seen by many critics as a form of modernist
fiction.

The project should examine literary depictions of:

how an incoming population reacted to their new surroundings and to the
pressures exerted by the metropolitan environment
the changing demographic brought about by increased social mobility,
immigration, and mass-production
the impact of changing notions of consumerism, retail outlets, public transport
systems and other aspects of the city and metropolitan life and (re)assess
how modernist issues and concerns are reflected in naturalistic urban fiction

Applications are welcomed from national or international candidates with a first

degree (first or upper second, or equivalent) or a Masters degree in English/
American/French/Italian comparative literature of the period.

Deadline for applications: 12 November 2010

Start date: January 2011

Informal enquiries can be made to Dr. Laurence Marriott

Laurence.marriott@northampton.ac.uk

For an application form and further details, please go to

www.northampton.ac.uk/research-studentships or call 0845 190 4615.

Please quote reference: UN10CITY

1.1 Title and background.

Naturalism, Modernism and the city. How British and American fiction from the 1880s to the
1930s informs modern perceptions of urban space and the lives of city-dwellers

Naturalist fiction finds its true home in urban environments. Many different facets of urban life have
been shown as cultural markers in the development of the change in human relationships as societies
evolved from isolated agrarian communities in the 19 th century into urbanised conglomerations in the
20th century. Currently the twenty-first-century scholar is reassessing and replacing modernism in the
socio-literary context, as well as within a broader historical and cultural matrix. This study of
naturalism in the literature of the period 1880s to1930s will contribute to a twenty-first-century re-
evaluation of modernism and to scholarship also being undertaken by art historians, musicologists
and social historians.

1.2 Aims and rationale.

This project will examine the way in which fiction of the period informs a perception of life in
the urban environment, and assess the continuing influence of modernist interventions.
i. To examine depictions of how an incoming population reacted to their new surroundings and
to the pressures exerted by the metropolitan environment.
ii. To analyse the changing demographic brought about by increased social mobility,
immigration, and the rise of mechanisation.
iii. To assess the impact of consumerism, the rise of the department store, public transport
systems and other aspects of the city and metropolitan life.
iv. To (re)assess how modernist issues and concerns are reflected in urban fiction and whether
these concerns were universal or local. For example, did British and American writers have
the same preoccupations?

1.3 Methodologies and timescale.

The project will necessarily involve a wide range of reading: an indicative list of authors of the period
will include George Moore, George Gissing, Arthur Morrison, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore
Dreiser, Edith Wharton, John Dos Passos, Richard Wright, Jacob Riis, Jack London and Upton
Sinclair. Also relevant is the non-canonical fiction of the period, such as the short stories of Damon
Runyon, O. Henry and writers found in the little magazines. Theoretical perspectives will include
critics of the period, such as Thorstein Veblen, Frank Norris (as critic), H.L. Mencken and W. D.
Howells, as well as later commentators whose scholarship concerning the metropolis, city spaces and
modernism itself has opened up new perspectives. The theoretical works of Walter Benjamin, Georg
Simmel, Lewis Mumford, and Michel de Certeau are all relevant.
Suggested Timescale (in months): literature review and project definition for APG status, 1-4; British
fiction and social commentary & draft chapter, 5-12; American fiction and social commentary & draft
chapter, 12-20; comparisons of British and American fictional representations, and theoretical
perspectives plus draft chapters, 21-30; revision and final writing up, 31-36.

1.4 Why the project is worth doing.

In recent years, scholars have engaged with a reassessment of the modernist period. In addition, the
rise of cultural studies has meant that popular fiction, as well as literature is now being studied. The
Modernist Magazine Project, based at Sussex University and De Montfort University, asks for a
reappraisal of the impact of modernism and has brought new light to bear on the writers who
contributed to these publications. New research on Katherine Mansfield since 2008 has re-examined
her work against the background of the 1st World War and theories of consciousness, diaspora/exile
and the postcolonial. This projects impact will come from the application of these and other new
insights to the changes within a specific genre of fiction: that is, naturalism in its urban contexts.
Modern cultural historians are incorporating a wider of range of commentary into what constitutes
history and regard all parts of artistic endeavour as forming historical readings of their own period. A
study of representations of the development of urban life will inform contemporary readers and
especially scholars and students of modernism.

Part Two

2.1. Quality and experience of the Supervisory Team

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The team will consist of Dr Lawrence Phillips, Dr Laurence Marriott, and Dr Sonya Andermahr (as
Director of Studies). Laurence Marriott has given conference papers in the USA on several writers of
the period, is an ABES contributor on late-Victorian and early twentieth-century literature and is
engaged in continuing research on fin-de-sicle writing in Britain, France and the USA. He organised
and contributed to the Sex and the City 1860-1930 conference held at the University of Northampton
in July 2009. Dr Phillips research centres on place, space and representation in English literature, film
and other narrative forms. He also actively engaged with interdisciplinary theories of space and place
ranging across cultural geography, philosophy, sociology, anthropology as well as literary forms. He is
currently the member of the supervisory team for five students one of whom will complete this year for
examination early in 2011. He is active in the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, organises the
annual conference, Literary London, and is a managing editor of Critical Engagements, the journal to
which UKFN is affiliated. Dr Marriott is taking the supervisors training course, and Dr Phillips is
currently on six PhD supervisory teams. Dr Andermahr is an experienced supervisor and has 4
completions and 3 ongoing PhD students.

2.2. Quality of the research environment

The Division of Media, English and Culture (MEC) is hospitable to and supports interdisciplinary
research and Knowledge Transfer by means of seminars, colloquia, conferences, new protocols and
active engagement with the creative industries in the local communities. There are currently ten PhD
students being supervised in MEC. The Divisions buoyant postgraduate culture, based in the Avenue
Research Centre, includes an independent reading group, post-graduate conferences and other
research events, such as poetry readings, and the weekly postgraduate and staff research seminar
series to which visiting scholars are invited. There is a well-developed programme of discipline-based
training, while research methods and skills modules are taught at the MA level. Notably this research
culture is expanding through a vibrant interest by several members of staff in modernism and the city
as recent conferences hosted by the School of Arts on Sex and the City 1860-1930: Representations
of City Women (2009), and Katherine Mansfield: A Centennial Conference (co-hosted with Birkbeck
in 2008) testify.

2.3. Extending research of national/international excellence; fit to unit of assessment

This project will contribute to the work being carried out by Andrew Thacker (De Montfort University)
and Peter Brooker (Sussex/Nottingham) on writings in modernist magazines, which is of recognised
international importance. Much of the fiction of this period started life in the little magazines and it is
only recently that their importance has been documented. A twenty-first-century re-evaluation of the
impact and significance of modernism is now an established field of study, and the naturalist
movement is a key part of the way that modernism is understood in hindsight. Other scholars, such
as Deborah Parsons (Birmingham, UK) and Judith Walkovitz (Johns Hopkins, USA), continue to
publish research into the topic, especially in the field of womens studies. Their work will inform and
be informed by this project. This research fits centrally into the English unit of assessment, and fulfils
the remit of the Centre for Contemporary Fiction and Narrative, the central organising structure for the
unit. It also fits well with the creativity and the community and identities strands of the institutional
themes.

2.4. Financial/resource feasbility

Apart from the need to acquire the key texts, there should be no extraneous resource implications for
this project.

Please quote reference: UN10CITY