Anthropology by gaslight

Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle and the anthropology of detection at the Victorianfin de siècle

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3919488
AutoresJohn Mcnabb (0000-0002-1841-4864, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen49
Número5
Páginas728-751
Fecha de publicación2017-10-20
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaWorld Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0043-8243 • E-ISSN: 1470-1375
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00438243.2017.1406396
OpenAlexW2775651478
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas30

The last decade of the Victorian era, the fin de siècle, was a time of deep social anxiety as the power structures and social institutions of the Victorian era came under great critical scrutiny from the arts and the sciences alike. Central concerns about human nature and just how civilised Victorians really were, were allied to concerns about the future of the ‘white race’ and its continued social and political hegemony. Much of the literature of this time focuses on the erosion of the boundaries between things that had seemed self-evident to earlier generations (racial distinctiveness, class superiority, imperialism etc.). Through anthropological themes, the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle reinforced all that was seen as good in the imperial project and in the hereditary superiority of those who delivered it. Yet after 1901 and the Hound of the Baskervilles these anthropological tropes all but vanished from Doyle’s work

Art · Art history · Fin de siecle · Hegemony · Politics · Power (physics · Race (biology · Scrutiny · Sociology · The arts · White (mutation · Anthropology · Decadence, Literature, and Society · Gender Studies · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy