The book reveals how Victorians biologized appearance, reimagining imitation, concealment and self-presentation as evolutionary adaptations.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction. Adaptive appearance in nineteenth-century culture; 1. Seeing things: art, nature and science in representations of crypsis; 2. Divine displays: Charles Kingsley, hermeneutic natural theology and the problem of adaptive appearance; 3. Criminal chameleons: the evolution of deceit in Grant Allen's fiction; 4. Darwin's little ironies: evolution and the ethics of appearance in Thomas Hardy's fiction; 5. Blending in and standing out I: crypsis versus individualism in fin-de-siècle cultural criticism; 6. Blending in and standing out II: mimicry, display and identity politics in the literary activism of Israel Zangwill and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Conclusion. Adaptive appearance and cultural theory.
