Priyanka Jacob
Priyanka Jacob Published with Oxford University Press
Priyanka Jacob, assistant professor in the Department of English, recently published a book, The Victorian Novel on File: Secrets, Hoards, and Information Storage, with Oxford University Press.
“Through her scholarship and teaching, Dr. Jacob connects Victorian literature to broader cultural dynamics,” said Peter J. Schraeder, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, “Her expertise offers students and readers a fresh perspective on how stories of the past continue to shape the present.”
Jacob’s area of study is primarily focused on the form and theory of the novel. Her book, The Victorian Novel on File, demonstrates how the capacious nineteenth-century novel was shaped by the period’s information explosion, gathering more data than it can use.
“My approach is distinctive in combining information studies, material culture studies, and theories of the novel form,” Jacob said. “I am fascinated by storage as a site of potential, seemingly frozen in time, yet oriented toward a future use; memorializing the past, yet gathering dust.”
Jacob is a long-time reader of nineteenth-century novels, drawn to their ‘clutter and capaciousness.’ While reading, she would consider the significance of minor material details, the temporal effects of the size of the novel, and how the desire to gather and preserve (data, objects, possibilities, and futures) shaped Victorian culture and our own.
“In response to an exponential increase in the amount of available data, storage became a priority: save everything, because it might matter later,” Jacob stated.
The book argues that the long Victorian novel is shaped by the dynamics of this information culture and the emphasis on accumulation, sometimes at the expense of communication, circulation, and value.
“The novel offers a space in which the things of the past are held, and the future is held open,” she said.
Jacob is also exploring how epistolary narratives–stories told through letters– function as powerful tools of storytelling and connection across centuries. She recently taught a capstone charting the evolution of epistolary storytelling from the 18th century to the present, as well as a graduate seminar on Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, one of the longest novels written in English.
“These courses helped me think more deeply about narrative and time,” Jacob reflected. “The letter form persists as a powerful mechanism of storytelling and interconnection, even in the digital age.”
Learn more about Jacob and The Victorian Novel on File: Secrets, Hoards, and Information Storage.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 13 schools and colleges. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments, 31 interdisciplinary programs, and 7 interdisciplinary centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of university-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the university’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”
Priyanka Jacob, assistant professor in the Department of English, recently published a book, The Victorian Novel on File: Secrets, Hoards, and Information Storage, with Oxford University Press.
“Through her scholarship and teaching, Dr. Jacob connects Victorian literature to broader cultural dynamics,” said Peter J. Schraeder, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, “Her expertise offers students and readers a fresh perspective on how stories of the past continue to shape the present.”
Jacob’s area of study is primarily focused on the form and theory of the novel. Her book, The Victorian Novel on File, demonstrates how the capacious nineteenth-century novel was shaped by the period’s information explosion, gathering more data than it can use.
“My approach is distinctive in combining information studies, material culture studies, and theories of the novel form,” Jacob said. “I am fascinated by storage as a site of potential, seemingly frozen in time, yet oriented toward a future use; memorializing the past, yet gathering dust.”
Jacob is a long-time reader of nineteenth-century novels, drawn to their ‘clutter and capaciousness.’ While reading, she would consider the significance of minor material details, the temporal effects of the size of the novel, and how the desire to gather and preserve (data, objects, possibilities, and futures) shaped Victorian culture and our own.
“In response to an exponential increase in the amount of available data, storage became a priority: save everything, because it might matter later,” Jacob stated.
The book argues that the long Victorian novel is shaped by the dynamics of this information culture and the emphasis on accumulation, sometimes at the expense of communication, circulation, and value.
“The novel offers a space in which the things of the past are held, and the future is held open,” she said.
Jacob is also exploring how epistolary narratives–stories told through letters– function as powerful tools of storytelling and connection across centuries. She recently taught a capstone charting the evolution of epistolary storytelling from the 18th century to the present, as well as a graduate seminar on Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, one of the longest novels written in English.
“These courses helped me think more deeply about narrative and time,” Jacob reflected. “The letter form persists as a powerful mechanism of storytelling and interconnection, even in the digital age.”
Learn more about Jacob and The Victorian Novel on File: Secrets, Hoards, and Information Storage.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 13 schools and colleges. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments, 31 interdisciplinary programs, and 7 interdisciplinary centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of university-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the university’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”