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Conclusion

Adaptive Appearance and Cultural Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2020

Will Abberley
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Summary

The Conclusion reflects on the implications of the study’s findings for future research, particularly in cultural theory. Victorian adaptive appearance is considered as a discourse that in certain ways prefigured the works of Charles Sanders Peirce and Jakob von Uexküll, and more recent theorisations of biosemiotics and zoosemiotics. The study shows that contemporary concepts of non-human and cross-species semiosis are less new than they may seem. However, it also problematises post-humanist celebrations of the supposed collapsing of the human/non-human binary. Similarly, the study shows that biosemiotic thinking does not necessarily align with progressive politics, as is sometimes assumed. As a cultural trope, adaptive appearance could both undermine and reinforce essentialist views of identity. It is suggested that the study’s discussions of visibility, recognition and appearance signpost new ways of approaching the politics of the gaze and the ideological stakes of female visibility. Some hints are offered on how researchers might explore the afterlives of adaptive appearance in twentieth-century science and culture. The chapter also notes how adaptive appearance has featured in retrospective fictive depictions of Victorian society and culture. Finally, parallels are suggested between Victorian adaptive appearance and current representations of environmental crisis.

Type
Chapter
Information
Mimicry and Display in Victorian Literary Culture
Nature, Science and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination
, pp. 205 - 214
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Conclusion
  • Will Abberley, University of Sussex
  • Book: Mimicry and Display in Victorian Literary Culture
  • Online publication: 16 May 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108770026.008
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  • Conclusion
  • Will Abberley, University of Sussex
  • Book: Mimicry and Display in Victorian Literary Culture
  • Online publication: 16 May 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108770026.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Will Abberley, University of Sussex
  • Book: Mimicry and Display in Victorian Literary Culture
  • Online publication: 16 May 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108770026.008
Available formats
×