Alice's Wonderland: Performances of Identity (Victorian and Edwardian Studies)

The volume presents a journey into Alice's Wonderland as a world of morphing possibilities. In a constant dialogue with Victorian codifications, Alice learns to define her identity and at the same time presents critical insights into her own cultural milieu. Alice appears to be on the threshold upon different systems of reference which she actively investigates through a specific involvement with Victorian institutions such as the family, the law and education. The analysis focusses in particular on her quest for her own identity, developed throughout Carroll's text as well as in later adaptations, and from the perspective of food studies. It combines Alice's narrative and theatrical/balletic body in a new experience of Wonderland as a cultural palimpsest that brings to expression contemporary reverberations of Victorian solicitations. The volume highlights the power of Carroll's text which already prefigures its ever renewing cultural impact as a template for storytelling.