ENGL 292 - Topics in British Literature

FDR: HL
Credits: 3-4

Winter 2018, ENGL 292A-01: British Literature: Weeping Men and Fainting Women: Gender and Emotion in 18th- and 19th-Century Literature (3). David Hume famously theorized that emotion is contagious, moving quickly from person to person. Interestingly, this theory threatens to disrupt traditional gender binaries, as men are no more immune to sentiment than women are. Indeed, in 18th-century sentimental fiction men are suddenly sighing, blushing, fainting, and crying all over the page. Eventually, the hyperbole of sentimental fiction (e.g., Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling) gives way to the more moderate literature of sensibility (e.g., Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility), but one thing remains consistent: emotion is contagious and gender is no obstacle. This course looks at three phrases in the British novel: sentimental novels, the literature of sensibility, and, finally, sensation fiction (e.g., Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White), which deploys emotional contagion in the service of terror rather than virtue. We discuss theories of emotion ranging from Adam Smith and David Hume to 21st-century affect theory. Students learn research skills and conclude by writing a scholarly paper on a topic of their choosing. (HL) Walle.

Winter 2018, ENGL 292B-01: Topics in British Literature: Eco-Horror and the Global Weird (3). Storytellers have long been fascinated with the various ways the human species might die off, from fires to floods. In the present day, such scenarios seem ever more pressing as we face threats from global climate change caused by human industrial activity, viral diseases and epidemics accelerated by travel and global trade, and the abiding prospect of nuclear war. This course considers how various authors present a variety of catastrophic scenarios through the perspective of ecological horror: when the world itself turns, in one way or another, against its dominant species. Along the way, we take up not only fire and ice, but also plague, poison, plants, planetary impacts, and, of course, cyclones full of killer sharks—not to mention all manner of other weird phenomena. Authors read may include Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, H.P. Lovecraft, John Wyndham, Anna Kavan, J.G. Ballard, Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, Emily St. John Mandel, and Reza Negarastani; we also watch a handful of movies. (HL) Ferguson.

Fall 2017, ENGL 292A-01: Topics in British Literature: Literature of the British Slave Trade, 1688-2016 (3). The British slave trade lasted from the mid-1600s until 1807, but its legacy is more tenacious: more than 200 years after the abolition of the slave trade, novelists like Yaa Gyasi are still writing about the horrors and indignities of this violent institution. To study British literature, however, is often to encounter the slave trade as a shadow or a gap, something that lurks in the background of our favorite 18th- and 19th-century novels but never quite breaks through the surface. By placing novels like Mansfield Park (1814) and Jane Eyre (1847) alongside works that deal more explicitly with slavery, this course aims to disrupt that image of cozy, “civilized” England and demonstrate that British literature cannot be separated out from the Atlantic slave trade and British imperialism. (HL) Walle.