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The presence of materiality and material culture in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine: rethinking a narrative text as constitutive of a material world.

Smith, D.; (2008) The presence of materiality and material culture in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine: rethinking a narrative text as constitutive of a material world. Doctoral thesis , University of London. Green open access

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Abstract

Within H. G. Wells's (1866-1946) short novel The Time Machine (1895) a peculiarly resonant sense of materiality is articulated. The novel can be defined in terms of the ways in which not just objects, but rather a more encompassing sense of materiality has been meticulously arranged so as to convey a detailed, familiar environment into which a fantastic element is introduced. This sense of a graspable everyday setting is dependent on a solidity of detailed materiality, as are the fantastic elements that disrupt them. This suggested quality of materiality and material culture relates not only to recognisably object-based artefacts but also to notions of selfhood. From this single text, I will attempt to construct a speculative notion of material culture, or rather, I will be analysing the presence of material culture and materiality, and attempting to build upon it. In this way, I will move towards the construction of a speculative notion of material culture, making the case for the novel as a valuable and privileged form as a generator of hermeneutic possibility.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Title: The presence of materiality and material culture in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine: rethinking a narrative text as constitutive of a material world.
Identifier: PQ ETD:592426
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Thesis digitised by ProQuest. Third party copyright material has been removed from the ethesis
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > The Slade School of Fine Art
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1445112
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