Lynn Voskuil
Associate Professor
- Phone: (713) 743-2972
- Office: 235 A Roy Cullen Building
Lynn Voskuil specializes in the literature and culture of Victorian Britain. Her recently published book, Acting Naturally: Victorian Theatricality and Authenticity (Virginia, 2004), explores the period's habitual use of the theatre to conceptualize the ethical, political, and epistemological concerns of middle-class culture. Her essays have appeared in a number of publications, including ELH: A Journal of English Literary History, Feminist Studies, and Victorian Studies, and she has received a number of research fellowships, including one from the National Endowment from the Humanities Her teaching explores the textures of Victorian culture by synthesizing a wide range of texts and genres, from archival documents to well-known masterpieces. Recent graduate courses include seminars in Victorian fiction and poetry, and on the undergraduate level she has most recently taught upper-division courses in Victorian Literature and Culture and Women in Literature. Dr. Voskuil has also served as the Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of English
Education
- Ph.D., University of Chicago
- M.A., University of Chicago
- B.A., Covenant College
Research Interests
Dr. Voskuil’s primary research interests focus on the leisure pursuits of nineteenth-century Britons, especially theater, horticulture and gardens, and the significant role of novels and novel-reading in Victorian culture. Her approach is interdisciplinary and archival, combining methods of study from literary, historical, and performance studies.
Current Projects
- Horticulture and Imperialism: The Garden Spaces of Victorian England (book project)
- “The Theatricalization of Victorian Imperialist Culture” (essay)
- “Being George Eliot” (essay)
Selected Publications
Book
- Acting Naturally: Victorian Theatricality and Authenticity (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004)
Articles
- “Feeling Public: Sensation Theater, Commodity Culture, and the Victorian Public Sphere,” Victorian Studies 44 (2002): 245-74
- “Acts of Madness: Lady Audley and the Meanings of Victorian Femininity,” Feminist Studies 27 (2001): 611-39
- “Acting Naturally: Brontë, Lewes, and the Problem of Gender Performance,” ELH: A Journal of English Literary History 62 (1995): 409-42
Teaching
- ENGL 3362: Women in Literature
- ENGL 3316: Literature of the Victorian Age
- ENGL 6301: Feminist Theory and Methodology
- ENGL 7365: Nineteenth-Century Preseminar
- ENGL 8360: Nineteenth-Century British Fiction
- ENGL 8361: Victorian Poetry
