Humankindness: Illness, Animality, and the Limits of the Human in the Victorian Novel

This project posits a link between representations of animals or animality and representations of illness in the Victorian novel, and examines the narrative uses and ideological consequences of such representations. Figurations of animality and illness in Victorian fiction have been examined extensively as distinct phenomena, but examining their connection allows for a more complex view of the role of sympathy in the Victorian novel. The commonplace in novel criticism is that Victorian authors, whether effectively or not, constructed their novels with a view to the expansion of sympathy. This dissertation intervenes in the discussion of the Victorian novel as a vehicle for sympathy by positing that texts and scenes in which representations of illness and animality are conjoined reveal where the novel draws the boundaries of the human, and the often surprising limits it sets on sympathetic feeling. In such moments, textual cues train or direct readerly sympathies in ways that suggest a particular definition of the human, but that direction of sympathy is not always towards an enlarged sympathy, or an enlarged definition of the human. There is an equally (and increasingly) powerful antipathetic impulse in many of these texts, which estranges readerly sympathy from putatively deviant, degenerate, or dangerous groups. These two opposing impulses—the sympathetic and the antipathetic—often coexist in the same novel or even the same scene, creating an ideological and affective friction, and both draw on the same tropes of illness and animality. Examining the intersection of these different discourses—sympathy, illness, and animality-- in these novels reveals the way that major Victorian debates about human nature, evolution and degeneration, and moral responsibility shaped the novels of the era as vehicles for both antipathy and sympathy. Focusing on the novels of the Brontës and Thomas Hardy, this dissertation examines in depth the interconnected ways that representations of animals and animality and representations of illness function in the Victorian novel, as they allow authors to explore or redefine the boundary between the human and the non-human, the boundary between sympathy and antipathy, and the limits of sympathy itself.

`A Reporter's Paper': The National Thrift News, Journalistic Autonomy and the Savings and Loan Crisis

Business journalism comes under persistent criticism for serving its historic readership of brokers and business people while lacking sufficient autonomy and failing to sufficiently question or challenge powerful corporate and economic interests. This is a dominant theme in media criticism of the savings and loan crisis⁠ and 2008 financial crisis.⁠ Against this backdrop, this dissertation asks: Is this critique valid, and if so, how can business journalism improve? To engage these questions, this dissertation examines the question of autonomy in business journalism in an unlikely place: the trade press. The central case study is coverage of the savings and loan crisis by the National Thrift News, a small financial services newspaper that won a George Polk award for its reporting in 1988. How could a small trade newspaper succeed in some instances when larger news organizations failed to connect the dots? The National Thrift News created a newsroom environment that celebrated reporter autonomy and independence. In some cases, it used its insider knowledge and consistent beat reporting to serve both its core readers and the broader society by uncovering savings and loan corruption. This study will highlight a long-running debate among theorists of journalistic professionalism by arguing that the commercial and advertising model in journalism does not inevitably compromise journalistic independence⁠ but rather can help pave a way forward for a more independent press. It therefore challenges the political economy critique of journalism, which holds that external forces such as capitalism harm press independence. This case suggests journalistic independence and individual agency remain powerful forces in newsrooms. Lastly, the dissertation argues that in an era of media downsizing, the trade press can perform an even more useful watchdog role over industry if the mainstream news media acknowledges and pursues some of the innovative trade reporting.