“Exploring Victorian Travel Literature: Disease, Race And Climate” by Emilie Taylor-Brown: Summary and Critique

1. Postcolonial Theory

• Colonial Travel Writing as an Ideological Tool: Howell demonstrates how Victorian travel narratives used climate to define racial hierarchies and justify imperial expansion.
  • “The politicised, racialised discourse of ‘climatism’… afforded writers of fictional and non-fictional travel narratives unique frameworks within which to explore national and imperial identity” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 5).
• Resistance to Colonial Discourses: The study highlights how writers like James Africanus Horton and Mary Seacole subverted colonial rhetoric by using climatic and disease discourse to challenge European superiority.
  • “Horton used the notion of climatic danger to criticise western colonial arrogance, champion native constitution, and create ‘space for a pocket of educated West African authorities’” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 97).

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2. Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities

• Climatism as an Imperial Justification and Environmental Determinism: Howell’s study examines how colonial travel narratives framed non-European spaces as inherently diseased and inhospitable to Europeans, reinforcing environmental determinism.
  • “Despite the increasing acceptance of germ theory and a plethora of discoveries in the fields of bacteriology and parasitology in this time period, environmental pathologies continued to persist in the imperial imagination” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 14).
• The Role of Miasma in Environmental Rhetoric: The book discusses how miasma was used to describe colonial spaces as places of danger and degeneration, reinforcing imperialist narratives.
  • “She makes a case, for example, for the utility of miasma as a ‘particularly rhetorically flexible element of climate’, which enabled writers to reimagine landscapes as irredeemable spaces of pathology, or as spaces of untold potential, in need of palliative imperialism” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 14).

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3. Medical Humanities and Disease Narratives

• Medical Geography and Imperial Biopolitics: Howell reveals how climate was central to colonial medical discourse, shaping perceptions of racial immunity and vulnerability.
  • “Burton’s ability to ‘sense’ an unhealthy area is used not only as a tool to reinforce his rhetorical authority, but as a framework for maintaining racial and moral hierarchies in a kind of ‘medical moral geography’” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 67).
• Hybrid Physiology and Racial Medicine: The study highlights how figures like Mary Seacole used medical narratives to challenge colonial racial theories by emphasizing mixed-race immunity to disease.
  • “By contrasting her ‘strong’ hybrid physiology with the ‘weak’ constitutions of white British subjects, Seacole, ‘tapped into [the] very germane and contentious topic[s]’ of polygenism and racial fitness” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 32).

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4. Biopolitics and Foucault’s Theory of Power

• The Body as a Site of Colonial Control: Howell’s analysis demonstrates how colonial authorities used environmental medicine to regulate bodies and populations in the empire.
  • “The resulting pro-imperial narratives united racial anthropology with geography and colonial medicine to produce intensely political frameworks which ‘inscribe[d] Africans within geographical boundaries’” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 57).
• Racialized Disease and Surveillance: Travel narratives framed non-European bodies as inherently diseased, reinforcing colonial biopower over indigenous populations.
  • “The aesthetic and rhetorical choices that the authors make in narrating their own tropical experiences represent ‘moments when […] the gaze of the coloniser and the gaze of the medical geographer’ collide” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 20).

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5. Gender and Postcolonial Feminism

• Mary Seacole and the Reframing of Colonial Womanhood: The study highlights how Seacole subverted gendered imperial ideologies by positioning herself as a competent healer rather than a passive colonial subject.
  • “Seacole positioned herself, and others like her, as ‘surrogate mothers’, and exploited white British subjects’ fear of disease in order to frame mixed-race nurses as indispensable” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 34).
• Mary Kingsley’s Resistance to Colonial Feminine Norms: Howell examines how Kingsley manipulated gendered narratives to gain authority in colonial travel writing while maintaining a racially separatist stance.
  • “She garnered narrative authority from this somatic robustness, which she framed as a ‘sympathy’ with local environments, and was able, at the same time, to use climate to argue against widespread European settlement” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 124).

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6. Psychological Modernism and Literary Impressionism

• Joseph Conrad and the Psychological Symbolism of Climate: Howell explores how Conrad’s use of mist and environmental symbolism represents the psychological and moral deterioration of European colonialists.
  • “Conrad’s ‘impressionism’ and use of symbolic mist, she argues, function as motifs, which focus attention on the process of becoming ill and its mental toll” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 141).
• Climate as a Metaphor for Colonial Anxiety: The study connects Conrad’s atmospheric descriptions to broader existential doubts about imperialism.
  • “This psychologised understanding of climatic illness ultimately ‘thr[e]w the colonial project’s basic feasibility into doubt’” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 141).

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Conclusion: The Broader Impact on Literary Theory

• Howell’s study bridges multiple fields, including postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, medical humanities, biopolitics, feminist theory, and modernist literary analysis.
• By examining climate as a multifaceted literary and ideological tool, the book sheds light on how environmental discourse functioned in the imperial imagination.
• Howell’s interdisciplinary approach makes Exploring Victorian Travel Literature a valuable resource for scholars studying colonial literature, travel writing, and the intersection of race, disease, and environment in literary history.

1. Over-Reliance on Climatism as an Analytical Framework

• The study heavily focuses on climatism as a primary interpretative lens, potentially overshadowing other significant factors, such as political, economic, and technological influences on colonial travel writing.
• Howell’s argument that climate was used in “multivalent and sometimes conflicting ways” (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 5) is strong, but it may overstate the dominance of climate over other imperial narratives, such as direct racial violence, economic exploitation, and administrative policies.

2. Limited Engagement with Indigenous Perspectives

• While the study acknowledges African authors like James Africanus Horton, it still prioritizes European colonial writers as the central voices, reinforcing a Eurocentric focus.
• There is less direct engagement with indigenous narratives, which could provide a more nuanced counterpoint to the colonial discourse on climate, disease, and race.

3. Narrow Focus on Victorian Travel Writing

• The study limits itself to the 1857–1899 period, which, while historically significant, may miss broader literary and scientific shifts in climate and disease discourse that occurred in the 18th and early 20th centuries.
• Expanding the analysis to later colonial or postcolonial texts could provide a more comprehensive perspective on how these ideas evolved.

4. Generalization of Literary Intentions

• Some literary authors’ intentions may be oversimplified, particularly when classifying them as either pro- or anti-colonial.
• Mary Kingsley, for example, is described as holding an “anti-colonial but pro-imperial” stance (Taylor-Brown, 2016, p. 118), but this label may fail to capture the complexity of her personal and ideological positions.

5. Potential Overstatement of Medical Moral Geography

• The argument that Burton and other writers constructed racial and moral hierarchies through medical geography is insightful, but it risks attributing too much intentionality to their descriptions of disease and climate.
• Some Victorian travel writers, rather than actively reinforcing imperial rule, may have simply reflected contemporary scientific beliefs about disease and environment rather than strategically shaping colonial ideology.

6. Absence of Contemporary Scientific Counterpoints

• The study does not engage deeply with contemporary medical or scientific critiques of Victorian climatism.
• Including scientific perspectives from historians of medicine might provide a more balanced evaluation of how climatism functioned alongside emerging germ theory.

7. Lack of Comparative Analysis with Non-British Colonial Texts

• The study focuses exclusively on British imperial narratives, missing a comparative perspective with French, Portuguese, or Dutch colonial travel literature, which could provide additional insights into how climatism functioned across different empires.
• A broader cross-colonial analysis could test whether the same climate-race-disease narratives were used beyond British imperial writing.