10:10a-11:00a MWF (30) 3 cr.
Over the past decade, critics of Victorian literature have paid
increasing attention to
global contexts, encounters across cultures, colonialism, and
imperialism. Victorian
literature now plays out on a global stage. The prominent British
critic Gillian Beer
offers a case in point. Fifteen years ago, Beer was writing about
"plot" and "narrative."
Her focus has shifted. In her book Open Fields (1996), Beer
writes about cultural
encounter in open racial, cultural, and disciplinary fields. Beer
contends that cultures
and writings change via what she calls "lateral encounter, between
groups and individuals,
alive at the same time, but in different initial conditions."
Our course will read some of the critical essays from Beer's Open
Fields. We'll try
to open up fields of encounter of our own. We'll read works that
travel abroad in fiction,
autobiographical travel narrative, poetry, and science. We'll also
read about foreigners or
natives who come to Britain from the outside (including Stoker's
Count Dracula and
Wells' Martians). We'll read about encounters between several
different cultural
fields. Some of our topics will include the death of the sun, native
or aboriginal ancestry,
the missing link, the fate of natural theology, and gender roles such
as masculine
self-discipline and independent energetic "Lady" travelers. We'll try
to ask how Victorians
positioned themselves in the world at large.
Our readings will feature several novels, probably including Dickens'
Great
Expectations, Hardy's Return of the Native, Stoker's
Dracula, Wells'
The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, and Bronte's
Wuthering Heights.
We might tackle Charles Kingsley's swashbuckling historical novel,
Westward Ho!
We’ll also read poetry from the Brownings, Arnold, and Tennyson.
Women “travel writings”
will probably include Bird's A Lady's Life in the Rocky
Mountains. If an edition
becomes available, we'll read Mary Kingsley's Travels in West
Africa. Travel writing
will also come to the fore when we read selected chapters from
Darwin's Voyage of the
Beagle. We'll consider natural theology and evolution in cultural
confrontation and
also read some selections from Darwin's On the Origin of
Species.
Student work in the course will include a mid-term, a final, two papers of the 6-8 page length, and a series of short response or informal working papers. Regular attendance will be expected.