The common ground on which this association of writers and scholars, whose names you'll find below, is founded is the hypothesis that Lewis Carroll was 'simply' a man. Not the 'Repressed Paedophile', or the 'Tragic Deviant with the Heart of Gold; not either the 'Pure and Innocent Lover of Children' with no understanding of his own fantasy world', nor the 'Ideal Friend', nor the 'Miraculous Writer'; not the 'Naive Uncle', not the 'Child-at-Heart', not the 'Social Hermit', not the 'Unfathomable Genius': all those are mythical constructs that can be questioned, because they can be shown to be extreme hypotheses which a simpler hypothesis might outdo.
The new studies start, then, with a questioning of the myth. They strive to examine the elements of this myth, to understand why it was born and how it functions, what needs it fulfils. The fact that it has evolved over time makes the task difficult, but not impossible. While this is being done, the new studies also attempts a re-construction of a coherent image of Carroll based on non-mythical data, and more particularly on historical data long left unexplored: we now have access to what remains of the unexpurgated diary, for example. Other data may also be gathered from the exploration of his relationships with his contemporaries. Etc.
This will allow what might be termed a 'recontextualisation': in other words, it should help to make sense of the man's life and his works within his time. This step will in turn allow us to ask new questions.
This is very much a work in progress. In this sense, it makes sense to
recognize a debt to all who have worked on Carroll. 'Contrariwise' stands for a
continuation of research, even though it fundamentally challenges many old certitudes.
It is not a full-bodied theory, but a tentative new paradigm, a new way of looking at what
are really very old questions. It's a whole field of research with its inherent
problems, to be solved as we go.
Pascale Renaud-Grosbras •
Hugues Lebailly •
Karoline Leach •
John Tufail •
Kate Lyon •
Mike Leach •
Jenny Woolf •