For a special issue devoted to the NAVSA conference held in Toronto, Canada, Victorian Studies asked three participants—Harriet Ritvo, James Vernon, and Kate Flint—to select and introduce papers which they thought addressed in provocative ways especially fresh and pressing topics.   In this fashion, the journal hopes to sustain the interaction developed at the conference, circulating some of its best papers while conveying the forward-looking, open-ended nature of the event as a whole.

Section One

Amanda Anderson,
"Victorian Studies and the Two Modernities"

Lauren Goodlad,
"Towards a Victorianist's Theory of Androgynous Experiment"

Talia Schaffer,
"Taming the Tropics: Charlotte Yonge Takes on Melanesia"

Kate Flint,
Response

Section Two

Michelle Elleray,
"Crossing the Beach: A Victorian Tale Adrift in the Pacific "

Amy King,
"Reorienting the Scientific Frontier: Victorian Tide-Pools and Literary Realism"

James Elwick,
"The Philosophy of Decapitation: Analysis, Biomedical Reform, and Devolution in London's Body Politic, 1830-1850"

Harriet Ritvo,
Response

Section Three

Matthew Rowlinson,
"Theory of Victorian Studies: Anachronism and Self-Reflexivity"

Catherine Gallagher,
"Theoretical Answers to Interdisciplinary Questions, or Interdisciplinary Answers to Theoretical Questions"

Sukanya Banerjee,
"Political Economy, the Gothic, and the Question of Imperial Citizenship"

James Vernon,
Response