English

At the end of the nineteenth century, the declining years of the Victorian era saw the outpouring of a creative freedom that rebelled against the morality of the preceding generation. Writers, artists, and critics challenged the boundaries of given understandings of sexuality, technology, and art. Known as “decadents” or “aesthetes,” many of these creative thinkers of the last two decades of the Victorian era explored homosexuality, scientific understandings of the human body, Empire and the detective form, and Gothic doublings of the self and Other. This course investigates the literary, artistic, and cultural climate that constitute “turn-of-the century” England, and examines the worlds of art, publishing, law, and literature that defined this time period.

This literature course develops independent thought and the ability to communicate information effectively. Students are encouraged to work independently, to discover and synthesize information, and to select the most relevant materials from a wide range of reading. Students learn how to assess the reliability of evidence and weigh a variety of competing or conflicting arguments, to analyze complex questions, to exercise problem-solving skills, and, in the developing and organizing of arguments, students learn how to present a coherent, reasoned, and well-supported set of conclusions in clear prose. Reading list includes: Jane Austen, NORTHANGER ABBEY, Charles Dickens, HARD TIMES, Elizabeth Gaskell, NORTH AND SOUTH, Mary Shelley, FRANKENSTEIN, and Walter Scott, IVANHOE, among others.

This course introduces students to the life and literature of London from the 17th century to the present day, from Isabella Whitney to Monica Ali. As students read some of London’s greatest poems, short stories, and novels, they walk the streets of London, visiting some of the great landmarks and museums, as well as looking into its lesser-known histories.

This course rests on the premise that the nineteenth century matters today, for it unleashed and solidified the main forces and ideologies shaping our lives as 21st-century global citizens: Capitalism, Marxism, Feminism, White Supremacy, Anti-racism, Environmentalism, etc. Course readings enable us to grapple with the complexity of this period as well as to rethink contemporary conflicts and crises: Is Whitman’s vision of democracy applicable today? What does the #MeToo movement owe to Charlotte Perkins Gillman? Do we live and work like Bartleby? What do we learn about freedom today by reading a slave narrative published 150 years ago?