he Victorians witnessed a significant reconfiguration of the religious landscape over the course of the nineteenth century. Increased freedom for religious minorities, new historical approaches to biblical criticism, renegotiations of the relationship between science and theology, and the emergence of alternative spiritual movements impacted the ways in which religion was imagined, understood, practiced, and expressed. This dynamic and vibrant religious culture is reflected in the period’s literary culture, with periodicals, literary criticism, novels, and poetry engaging with the diverse forms in which religion was present. This special issue invites papers that read the varied forms of Victorian religion and/or responses to it. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Readings of Victorian religion with reference to current theoretical approaches (e.g. post-secular, post-colonial, ecological)
- Religious novels/poetry/periodicals
- Working-class poetry and religion
- Religion and race
- Gender and/or sexuality and religion
- Supernatural fiction and religion (e.g. ghost stories, fantasy, fairytales)
- Reading practice and religion (e.g. devotional reading, communal reading)
- Religious readings of literature (e.g. Shakespeare)
- Natural theology
- Victorian readings and/or rewritings of religious texts (e.g. the Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible, Bhagavad Gita, parables, wisdom literature, typology)
- New movements (e.g. theosophy, spiritualism)
- Representations of the Victorian religious ‘other’
- Victorian books and religion
Deadline for submission is December 1, 2025. Finished essays should be 7,000-10,000 words in length, inclusive of endnotes and bibliography. Please follow MLA (7th edition) formatting and documentation. Authors may submit manuscript through our submissions portal: Victorians submission. Please direct any questions or expressions of interest to Amanda Vernon. Thank you for considering publishing your work for this special issue.
Created 26 May 2025
Last modified 26 May 2025