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Marijke Valk

Languages and Literature, University of Birmingham

Thesis title:

Transmuting the Borderland: The Alchemical Revival and the Re-Enchantment of Science in Late-Victorian Fiction

While the Victorian era saw many empirical scientific advancements, late-Victorian fiction began to ‘merge the chemist and biologist in the alchemist and the magician’ (Nesbit, ‘Five’ 162); fiction provided a space in which science was imagined thoroughly re-enchanted through alchemical narratives, echoing the Victorian occult and spiritual resurgence. Existing research on alchemy has predominantly focused on early-modern revivals – including Eggert’s (2015) and Yates’s (2001) examinations of Renaissance alchemy in relation to Baconian empiricism – the alignment of late-Victorian discoveries like radioactivity with the alchemical revival (Morrison, 2007), and alchemy’s ties to modern chemistry (Principe, 2012). Recent work by Alder (2020) and Dobson (2022) begins to examine fictional representations of alchemy to understand its marginal status in Victorian culture, but fiction’s role in bridging the perceived gap between science and mysticism at this juncture has not yet been fully illuminated. Attentive to alchemy’s ambivalent role as both spiritual and chemical practice, I will build upon the aforementioned scholarship, demonstrating how fiction offered a blank canvas for imagining alchemical possibilities in cutting-edge science. Through challenging scientific boundaries, alchemy re-enchants Victorian science, exploring its potential as a stabilising force amid change.

My project addresses the question: How does late-Victorian fiction articulate the revival of alchemy and portray its role in re-enchanting contemporary science? This question is underpinned by several objectives, which include establishing key motivations behind the resurgence of laboratory-based and Paracelsian-inspired (medical) alchemical practices during this period, and the employment of alchemical symbols and narratives to challenge mechanistic scientific worldviews. Additionally, this project suggests porous scientific boundaries, establishing how parallels between alchemical transmutation and modern biotechnological advancements invite the scrutiny of ethical considerations in scientific experimentation and further our understanding of historical narratives that continue to influence contemporary perspectives on science.


Research Area

  • English Language and Literature
  • Languages and Literature

Publications

Valk, Marijke. 'A Potion to Stopper Death: The Gothic’s Use of Alchemy in Ainsworth’s Auriol; or The Elixir of Life and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s A Strange Story', in Victorian Gothic and the Occult. Edited by Kirsten Mills, Palgrave Macmillan, (Accepted/In press).

Conferences

  • (Co-organised and presented) Valk, Marijke. '"The Chimera of Magical Fascination: The Representation of Alchemy in Victorian Occult Fiction"', Lifting the Veil: Science, Superstition, and the Supernatural, OSL, University of Groningen, Amsterdam, 2 February 2023. 
  • (Presented) Valk, Marijke. ‘“The Chimera of Magical Fascination”: Alchemy's Innate Duality in Bulwer-Lytton's A Strange Story and Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. Literary Twilight Zone: Nonfictional Fiction, 1820–1920, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, 28 June 2023. 



Memberships

  • BAVS: British Association for Victorian Studies

Seminar leader and instructor at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands (Nov 2023 - Aug 2024)

  • EAP: Research Reports (this course focuses on conducting research, writing a research paper, and giving a formal presentation on a research project within the field of modern literature)
  • Literary Theory for English Studies (This course provides an overview of modern literary theory and its fundamental concepts. It also introduces some key critical approaches (e.g., feminism, postcolonialism). It requires students to reflect on what they are doing as professional readers and prepares them for working with a variety of literary texts at university level. The course relates the study of literature to wider social, political and academic issues.)