|
|
Literature
563: Novel Geographies
Eighteenth-Century British Fiction& the
Cultural Institutions of the “Rise of the Novel”
winter
2007 Dr. Abby
Coykendall acoykenda@emich.edu
Phone: (734)
487-0147 (messages only) ~ or email
for an appointment ~
|
Literature
563: Studies in Eighteenth-Century Fiction
Novel Geographies: 18th-Century
British Fiction & the Cultural Institutions of the “Rise of the Novel”
Literature 563
is a course in which you will investigate a wide variety of British prose
fiction from the period that spans the late seventeenth, eighteenth, and early
nineteenth centuries. This period is
generally referred to as the “long” eighteenth century in order to account for
the revolutions that precede and conclude the eighteenth century proper, both
of which influence the direction of British literary culture profoundly. Namely, the Restoration (of the British
monarchy) following the Civil War and, of course, the French Revolution, the
period’s spectacular fin de siècle denouement. In addition to neo-classicism, which is only one
of many literary movements prevalent at the time (and not necessarily the most
interesting nor even the most important one), we will consider other genres no
less representative of the period, whether they be gothic, orientalist,
libertine, sentimental, or those prevailing in the visual arts such as the
picturesque, chinoiserie, and rococo.
Likewise, although our primary focus will be on the novel, a genre
widely thought to be first invented and developed during this period, we will
consider non-fictional, semi-fictional, or at least
not-necessarily-so-novelistic genres almost equally fashionable at the time,
such as print journalistic vehicles like the Spectator, travel narratives, or epistolary works. These quasi-canonical narratives are
important in and of themselves, as well as in terms of how they shape the
emergence of the novel (arguably, merely an omnivorous, mass-produced hybrid of
them all) as the genre of choice and as the ultimate guardian of the literary
real from this period onwards.
Perhaps more
than any other period, the eighteenth century represents a moment that we must
evaluate and reevaluate to challenge and interrogate the values of our own
time. Although often considered the
quaint, tea-and-crumpets blueprint for civil societies across the globe, the
British eighteenth century witnesses both the positives and negatives of
modernity in the extreme. Thus, in midst
of a massive expansion of the slave trade, the birth of the market economy and
finance capitalism, as well as an increasingly rigid sex-gender system
(culminating in “Angle of the House” Victorian domesticity), we find a
celebration of art and culture that students of literature still cannot help
but admire. We will test both the apocalyptic
and utopian visions of the British enlightenment through a diverse array of
texts that put issues of modernity at the fore.
Ultimately, whether discussing literature or world events, we will
attempt to expand rather than confine our engagement with the material, not
only putting literary works in dialogue with the historical and philosophical
texts of the time, but also examining how they shape the myriad claims to (and
contestations against) modernity that continue to vex our own.
Course Itinerary
|
Section One: Contact Zones: The
Global Eighteenth Century |
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; Richard Steele, “Inkle and
Yarico”; Joseph Addison, “Royal Exchange”, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe;
Selections from Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative |
|
Section Two: Inventions,
Ideologies: Sexuality and Gender |
Eliza Haywood, Fantomina;
John Cleland, Fanny Hill;
Selections from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters, Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, and Oliver Goldsmith,
Vicar of Wakefield |
|
Section Three: Counter-Culture, Counter-Revolution: National and Sexual
Geographies Revisited |
Ann Radcliffe, The Italian: |
Texts and Materials
The following books are
available at Ned’s bookstore (http://www.nedsbooks.com/emu/; 483-6400;
|
|
|
|
|
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko;
Or, The Royal Slave. Ed. Catherine Gallagher (Bedford, 1999; ISBN 0312108133)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson
Crusoe. Ed. John Richetti (Penguin
2003; ISBN 0141439823)
John Cleland, Fanny Hill:
Or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Modern Library 2001; ISBN 0395051649)
Ann Radcliffe, The Italian.
Ed. Frederick Garber (Oxford, 1998; ISBN 0192832549)
Make sure to
get the same editions pictured and listed below; otherwise the differing page
numbers will make it difficult to follow along with class discussions. Several required
texts are located online through the Electronic Reserves (ER): http://reserves.emich.edu/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=1627. Print the Electronic Reserve materials in
advance from the computers on the first floor of the
Assessment & Assignments
Aside from the required
reading, there will one of three different kinds of homework assignments due
almost every week of the semester: 1) an informal response; 2) a discussion
question for your peers; or 3) outside research on one of the primary texts
covered for the week. Each group will
cycle though these assignments as indicated on the Schedule. See the List of Group Assignments (http://people.emich.edu/acoykenda/563/groups.htm)
for information about which group you are in, and see the Weekly Homework
Assignments (http://people.emich.edu/acoykenda/563/hmwk.htm)
for more detailed information about the homework.
|
35% |
Weekly Homework Assignments |
due dates: |
|
15% |
Research Proposal (4 pages) |
April 10
|
|
5% |
Research Presentation |
April 24
|
|
45% |
Seminar Paper (16-20 pages) |
April
20 (5PM) |
I strongly recommend consulting with me as early
as possible in the semester to identify the topics that you want to pursue in
the research paper. You can recycle any
of the work that you generate through the homework assignments in the research
paper itself; e.g. by expanding one of your responses into a more formal (and
more organized) essay or by using one of the discussion questions as a basis
for further analysis and research.
Academic Integrity
Any plagiarized
writing will automatically result in a failing, zero-percent grade for the
assignment. The general rule is that if
you use three or more words of another writer in a row without enclosing those
words in quotation marks and acknowledging your source, you are guilty of
plagiarism. See http://www.emich.edu/halle/plagiarism.html
for more specific guidelines.
Schedule
Section One: Contact Zones — The Global Eighteenth Century
Week
One (January 10):
Introduction
to Course; Student Introductions; Conjectural Reponses
Week
Two (January 17):
Primary Text: Aphra
Behn, Oroonoko (OR
34-100)
Context:
Catherine Gallagher Introduction (OR 3-25)
Theorists: Ella Shohat and Robert Stam,
“Tropes of Empire,” Unthinking
Eurocentrism [ER]
Criticism: Srinivas Aravamudan,
“Petting Oroonoko,” Tropicopolitans,
Selections [ER]
Optional
Theorist: J. M. Coetzee, Lives of the
Animals [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 1 Response;
Group 2 Discussion
Question; Group 3 Research
Week
Three (January 24):
In-Class Film: Imagined Communities (39
min)
Primary Texts: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters [ER,
Biography Optional]
Joseph Addison, “Royal Exchange” [ER]
Richard Steele, “Inkle and Yarico” [OR
190-98]
Context:
“Restoration and Eighteenth Century,” Longman Anthology, Parts I & II [ER]
Artwork:
Theorist:
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Selections [ER]
Mary
Louis Pratt, “Arts of the
Contact Zone,” Selections [ER]
Optional
Criticism: Peter
Hulme, “Inkle and Yarico” [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 2 Response;
Group 3 Discussion
Question; Group 1 Research
Week
Four (January 31):
In-Class Film: Edward Said on
Orientalism (40 min)
Primary Texts: Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative [OR 310-25, 391-92, 458-63]
Daniel
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe [5-41]
Criticism: Nell Boyce, “Out of
Context:
Historical Context on Slavery [OR 208-17, 326-34, 393-401]
John Richetti, Introduction Robinson Crusoe [RC
3-22]
Theorist:
Edward Said, “Imaginative
Geography and Its Representations,” Orientalism [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 3 Response;
Group 1 Discussion
Question; & Group 2 Research
Week
Five (February 7):
Primary Text: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe [RC
41-141]
Criticism: Deidre Lynch and
William Warner, Introduction to Cultural Institutions of the Novel [ER]
Peter Hulme, “Robinson Crusoe
and Friday” [ER]
Theorist: Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 1 Response;
Group 2 Discussion
Question; Group 3 Research
Week
Six (February 14):
Primary Text: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe [RC
141-241]
Criticism:
Roxann Wheeler, “‘My Savage,’ ‘My Man’”
[ER]
John Bender, “Novel and the Rise of the
Penitentiary,” Selections [ER]
Optional Theorist: Franz
Fanon, “Fact of Blackness” [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 2 Response;
Group 3 Discussion
Question; Group 1 Research
Section Two: Inventions, Ideologies: Sexuality
and Gender
Week
Seven (February 21):
Primary
Texts: Oliver Goldsmith, Vicar of
Eliza
Haywood, Fantomina [ER;
Biography Optional]
Context:
“Restoration and Eighteenth Century,” Longman Anthology, Part III [ER]
Theorist:
Ruth Perry, “Colonizing the Breast,” Part
I-II [ER]
Optional Theorist: Terry
Castle, “Masquerade and Civilization” [ER]
HOMEWORK:
Group 3 Response;
Group 1 Discussion
Question; Group 2 Research
Week
Eight (February 28): NO CLASS (Winter Recess) Along with the homework specified below, either reading further into Fanny
Hill or beginning The Italian over the break (supposing that you
want to write your research paper on one or the other of those novels), and/or
getting a start on your Research Proposal is recommended to make the end of the
term go more smoothly.
Week
Nine (March 7):
Primary Text: John Cleland, Fanny Hill [FH 1-100]
Context: Gary Gautier Introduction to Fanny Hill (v-xiv)
Criticism:
Nancy Miller, “‘I’s in Drag: The Sex of Recollection” [ER]
Theorist:
Mary Russo, “Female Grotesques: Carnival and Theory,” Selections [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 1 Response;
Group 2 Discussion
Question; Group 3 Research
Week
Ten (March 14):
Primary Text: John Cleland, Fanny Hill [FH
100-213]
Criticism:
Felicity Nussbaum, “Prostitution, Body Parts, and Sexual Geography,” Torrid Zones [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 2 Response;
Group 3 Discussion
Question; & Group 1 Research
Week
Eleven (March 21):
In-Class Film: Portions of Tristram Shandy (Dir. Michael Winterbottom, 2006)
Primary Text: Laurence
Sterne, Selections from Tristram Shandy [ER**]
Criticism:
Bonnie Blackwell, Selections from “Theater of the Mechanical Mother” [ER**]
Optional Criticism: William
Warner, “Elevation of the Novel” [ER]
HOMEWORK:
Group 3 Response;
Group 1 Discussion
Question; & Group 2 Research;
All groups should work on Research Proposal (due April 11)
Section Three:
Counter-Culture, Counter-Revolution: National and Sexual Geographies
Week
Twelve (March 28):
Primary Text: Ann Radcliffe, The Italian [1-100]
Context: E. J. Clery, Introduction to The Italian (vii-xxxi)
Criticism:
Saglia Diego, “Looking at the Other” [ER]
HOMEWORK: Work on Research Proposal (due April 11)
Week Thirteen (April 4):
Primary Text: Ann Radcliffe, The Italian [101-201]
Criticism:
Cannon Schmitt, “Techniques of Terror, Technologies of Nationality” [ER]
HOMEWORK: Work on Research Proposal (due April 11)
Week
Fourteen (April 11): NO CLASS (Individual Conferences)
Primary Text: Ann Radcliffe, The Italian [202-302]
HOMEWORK: Research Proposal due during
Conference; Check Conference Schedule
Week
Fifteen (April 18):
Primary Text: Finish Ann
Radcliffe, The Italian [303-415]
HOMEWORK: All groups write a response
on the Italian incorporating either Schmitt or Diego
Week
Sixteen (April 25): Research Presentations (Papers
due either under my office door, 603G Pray Harrold, or in my department mailbox,
612 Pray Harrold, by April 30 at 5:00 PM)
[Syllabus last modified January 9, 2007]