Abstract

This article investigates Henry James’s digital afterlives by analyzing popular James-themed images and articles that have been shared on the Internet since 2000. Adapting Richard Dawkins’s theory of virality and Michael Anesko’s concept of James’s cultural capital, this article engages with viral content published on websites such as Bustle, McSweeney’s, The Onion, The Paris Review, Hark! A Vagrant, and The Toast. Though some of this material is found to be simplistic, a complex strain of feminist satire is identified that reflects powerfully both on James texts and on the changing nature of academic employment and undergraduate education.

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