12:20p-1:10p MWF (30) 3 cr


OPEN TO MAJORS ONLY. DECLARED MINORS OBTAIN AUTHORIZATION FROM
BH402.


This course will focus on various topics related to literature and
labor in the nineteenth century writings in English.  Authors in the
nineteenth century both commented upon and participated in the growth
of industrialization and commodity culture in Britain and America.  We
will read several essays from the period addressing different
conceptualizations of work, workers, and the author as literary
laborer. Our survey will also cover a number of literary "works,"
possibly including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Mary Shelley
(Frankenstein), Thomas Carlyle, Charlotte Brontė (Jane
Eyre), Elizabeth Gaskell (Cranston), Stowe (Uncle Tom's
Cabin), Dickens (Hard Times or Great Expectations),
Frederick Douglass (Narrative), Thoreau (Walden),
Emerson,Jewett (Country of the Pointed Firs), William Morris,
Walt Whitman, and Oscar Wilde (Picture of Dorian Gray).

We will encounter these texts (or excerpts of these texts) as
we explore such potential topics as Romanticism and the Work of the
Poet; Domesticity and the Novel; the Commodification of Reading and
Writing Fiction; Imperialism, Slavery, and include frequent short
responses to the readings (both in and out of class), two exams, and a
longer research paper which will involve a series of drafting
assignments.  Students will also be asked to lead class discussions
once or twice during the semester.  Attendance and participation will
count heavily toward the final grade.