Feminist Dialogues Speaker Series: “But do you know what day it is?”

“But do you know what day it is?”:
Dracula, Gendered Empire, and the Breakdown of Patriarchal-Imperial Colonial Discourse

Victorian patriarchal-imperial discourse justified colonization abroad and men's ownership of women at home. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the frontiers between internal/external, home/elsewhere exist everywhere, and are often associated with women who hold knowledge-power that undermines the Crew of Light's assumptions about the ‘natural’ inferiority of women, feminized men, and land. Muddled marriage, multiple feminized frontiers, and knowledgeable local women all challenge the idea that colonization was a natural offshoot of British patriarchal responsibility. If only the Crew would listen!