There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all.

— Foucault, The Use of Pleasure

I AM NOT NOW, nor have I ever been, a Victorianist. Nor will I ever be one. This is not to say that I do not teach courses focusing on nineteenth-century texts and contexts, that I have not recurrently written on topics and events that took place between 1799–1899, or that despite my best intentions my scholarly projects do not continue to keep pulling me back through this historical domain. Nevertheless, whatever I do intellectually, I do not do it as “a Victorianist,” whatever that might mean.