Writing
Erick DuPree’s blog explores the intersections of anthropology, literature, and material culture, illuminating how identity, ritual, and meaning take shape across time and tradition. Blending scholarship with storytelling, these essays invite readers to think critically and imaginatively about the cultural forces that shape both personal lives and collective experience.
Victorian Monsters: Shadows of Progress and Fear
Victorian monsters—vampires, werewolves, and mummies—mirrored anxieties about sex, science, empire, and identity, showing how fear and fascination shaped both culture and imagination.
Victorian Culture, “Other Sciences,” the Occult, and Mourning
Victorian culture embraced “other sciences” like phrenology, alienism, and spiritualism alongside mourning rituals. These practices mirrored anxieties about race, empire, gender, and death—revealing how science, the occult, and grief shaped the shadows of progress.
Little Ladies, Big Lessons: Victorian Fashion Dolls as Instruments of Gender Socialization
Little Ladies: Victorian Fashion Dolls and the Feminine Ideal explores how 19th-century dolls served as tools of gender training and socialization. Beneath the silks and lace lies a powerful story of class, empire, and the making of the “proper” woman—stitched in miniature.