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Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series

Marie-luise Kohlke Orcid Logo

Humanities, Volume: 11, Issue: 1, Pages: 15 - 18

Swansea University Author: Marie-luise Kohlke Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.3390/h11010015

Abstract

This article explores the convergence, inversion, and collapse of heterotopic spaces in E. S. Thomson’s neo-Victorian Jem Flockhart series about a cross-dressing female apothecary in mid-nineteenth-century London. The eponymous first-person narrator becomes embroiled in the detection of horrific mur...

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Published in: Humanities
ISSN: 2076-0787
Published: MDPI AG 2022
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa59170
first_indexed 2022-01-13T11:58:07Z
last_indexed 2024-11-14T12:15:00Z
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spelling 2023-12-22T11:18:36.1260478 v2 59170 2022-01-13 Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series 789e6b628cdc4d0fc1c66eff6654c610 0000-0003-1475-7218 Marie-luise Kohlke Marie-luise Kohlke true false 2022-01-13 CACS This article explores the convergence, inversion, and collapse of heterotopic spaces in E. S. Thomson’s neo-Victorian Jem Flockhart series about a cross-dressing female apothecary in mid-nineteenth-century London. The eponymous first-person narrator becomes embroiled in the detection of horrific murder cases, with the action traversing a wide range of Michel Foucault’s exemplary Other spaces, including hospitals, graveyards, brothels, prisons, asylums, and colonies, with the series substituting the garden for Foucault’s ship as the paradigmatic heterotopia. These myriad juxtaposed sites, which facilitate divergence from societal norms while seemingly sequestering forms of alterity and resistance, repeatedly merge into one another in Thomson’s novels, destabilising distinct kinds of heterotopias and heterotopic functions. Jem’s doubled queerness as a cross-dressing lesbian beloved by their Watsonean side-kick, the junior architect William Quartermain, complicates the protagonist’s role in helping readers negotiate the re-imagined Victorian metropolis and its unequal power structures. Simultaneously defending/reaffirming and contesting/subverting the status quo, Jem’s body itself becomes a microcosmic heterotopia, problematising the elision of agency in Foucault’s conceptualisation of the term. The proliferation of heterotopias in Thomson’s series suggests that neo-Victorian fiction reconfigures the nineteenth century into a vast network of confining, contested, and liberating Other spaces. Journal Article Humanities 11 1 15 18 MDPI AG 2076-0787 agency; garden; gender; heterotopia; Jem Flockhart series; Michel Foucault; Otherness;E. S. Thomson 13 1 2022 2022-01-13 10.3390/h11010015 COLLEGE NANME Culture and Communications School COLLEGE CODE CACS Swansea University Not Required N/A 2023-12-22T11:18:36.1260478 2022-01-13T11:49:17.5376134 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing Marie-luise Kohlke 0000-0003-1475-7218 1 59170__22167__26fe6baa6b404bfa95497e21d9af025d.pdf 59170.pdf 2022-01-18T11:28:20.2395538 Output 357322 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2022 by the author. This is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series
spellingShingle Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series
Marie-luise Kohlke
title_short Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series
title_full Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series
title_fullStr Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series
title_full_unstemmed Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series
title_sort Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart Series
author_id_str_mv 789e6b628cdc4d0fc1c66eff6654c610
author_id_fullname_str_mv 789e6b628cdc4d0fc1c66eff6654c610_***_Marie-luise Kohlke
author Marie-luise Kohlke
author2 Marie-luise Kohlke
format Journal article
container_title Humanities
container_volume 11
container_issue 1
container_start_page 15
publishDate 2022
institution Swansea University
issn 2076-0787
doi_str_mv 10.3390/h11010015
publisher MDPI AG
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing
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description This article explores the convergence, inversion, and collapse of heterotopic spaces in E. S. Thomson’s neo-Victorian Jem Flockhart series about a cross-dressing female apothecary in mid-nineteenth-century London. The eponymous first-person narrator becomes embroiled in the detection of horrific murder cases, with the action traversing a wide range of Michel Foucault’s exemplary Other spaces, including hospitals, graveyards, brothels, prisons, asylums, and colonies, with the series substituting the garden for Foucault’s ship as the paradigmatic heterotopia. These myriad juxtaposed sites, which facilitate divergence from societal norms while seemingly sequestering forms of alterity and resistance, repeatedly merge into one another in Thomson’s novels, destabilising distinct kinds of heterotopias and heterotopic functions. Jem’s doubled queerness as a cross-dressing lesbian beloved by their Watsonean side-kick, the junior architect William Quartermain, complicates the protagonist’s role in helping readers negotiate the re-imagined Victorian metropolis and its unequal power structures. Simultaneously defending/reaffirming and contesting/subverting the status quo, Jem’s body itself becomes a microcosmic heterotopia, problematising the elision of agency in Foucault’s conceptualisation of the term. The proliferation of heterotopias in Thomson’s series suggests that neo-Victorian fiction reconfigures the nineteenth century into a vast network of confining, contested, and liberating Other spaces.
published_date 2022-01-13T05:10:16Z
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