01 T 4,5 2:00-5:00PM CAC 18689 PRICE MU-302
Nineteenth-century Britain saw farmers migrate to brand-new factories; suburbs spring up along the world’s first train lines; empire expand across the globe. To make sense of those changes, Britons turned to new technologies of representation. Along with photography and mass-market newspapers, they invented forms of fiction that reached a wide swathe of the literate public. The novels that we will read in this course are emotionally gripping, intellectually ambitious, ethically serious, hair-raisingly suspenseful, and sidesplittingly funny. They are also long. To make the workload manageable, we will read three novels against a backdrop of short stories, essays, journalism and maps. In place of a single final paper, we will experiment with a series of biweekly creative and critical exercises, alternating individual assignments with collaborative work and word docs with images and audio files. Non-majors are very welcome, as long as you are eager to spend many of your waking hours lost in a book.