Carving an Alternative Feminist Historiography in Christine Wilks’ Digital Work Underbelly

Document Type : Original Article

Author

English Literature - Faculty of Al-Alsun - Minia University

Abstract

The emergence of digital fiction as a hybrid form between computer world and literature has created new literary forms with interactive, multimodal, transmedial features. The aim of this paper is to revisit a forgotten episode of women histories in the Victorian age using the medium of digital fiction, through studying Christine Wilks’ Underbelly (2012). The narrative traces the history of women miners in England through interviewing a sculptor who was working in the site of a former Yorkshire colliery. The paper attempts to analyze Underbelly from different theoretical approaches: First, Espen Aarseth topological model of cybertexts is used to investigate the relation between game and digital studies. Moreover, Underbelly will be studied from a narrative and multi-modal perspectives to show how narration can be enriched by digital media, and the role of visual, audio and textual techniques. The paper examines Underbelly as a manifestation of cyber-feminism.

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