Introduction: On Not Mastering Race and Transnationalism in Victorian Periodical Studies

Abstract:

This essay argues for transnational methodologies to redress the racial aphasia of Victorian periodical studies. Discourses about race and Indigeneity abound in nineteenth-century anglophone periodicals but have been seldom acknowledged. Building upon calls to undiscipline nineteenth-century literary studies, this essay and the special issue it introduces advocate for expansive approaches to race and transnationality. We consider why widening periodical studies' geographical reach beyond the Global North necessitates new methodologies to complement the lively engagement with Black studies currently reshaping Romantic and Victorian scholarship. We invite periodicals scholars to disentangle the essential organizational work of bibliographical analysis and attribution research from the subject position of "mastery" and to recommit ourselves to solidarity with and justice for marginalized communities whose voices can be located within periodical archives.