Anthology

Lit 2: Victorian Literature
ENGL-320-01 CRN: 41350
TR 12:45-2:30pm CO 413
Tracy Seeley
Like you, people in Victorian England (~1830-1900) lived in a
world shaped by new media—newspapers in their case—and
rapid technological and social change. In very public ways,
thanks to the steam printing press, they hotly debated such
familiar topics as evolution vs. religion,
global capitalism, women’s place in
society, race and the ethics of slavery.
Our world, in fact, owes many of its
current ideas and realities to ideas
developed during the Victorian age:
Utilitarianism, social activism,
Darwinism, Trade Unionism, global
capitalism, Marxism, and feminism.
And as we do now, the Victorians both
marveled and worried over a dizzying
rate of technological innovation.
Among other things, they gave us
photography, postage stamps, rubber
tires, flush toilets, subways, electric
street lights and movies. Under their
watch, England also solidified its hold
on colonial possessions around the
globe, exporting English language, literature and culture as
part of its strategies of governance and control.
In this course, we’ll explore how the voices of writers engaged
and added to this energetic, public world. We’ll read works
by such writers as Elizabeth Gaskell; Charles Dickens;
Thomas Carlyle; D. G. Rosetti; Christina Rosetti; Alfred,
Lord Tennyson; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Robert
Browning; and Thomas Hardy.
Lit 3: Literature of Migration
ENGL-330-01 CRN: 41356
TR 9:55-11:40am LM 354
Christina Garcia Lopez
Of all the stories that circulate about ‘America,’ the story of
migration is central to understanding the national narrative,
which in itself is always in contestation. In this class, we will
examine the significance of migration narratives, and the
movements of people and ideas which those narratives describe,
within and across American borders. In
particular, this class will focus on
contemporary literature, written in the
C20th-21st, and will include fiction,
poetry, and non-fiction representing a
variety of cultural and ethnic groups.
Across these texts, we will consider the
ways in which literary aesthetics are used
to communicate the experience of
migration and its lived consequences, such
as: generational conflict, linguistic and
cultural change, economic negotiation, and
shifts in gender roles. Through our
engagement with a diverse set of texts, and
thoughtful interrogation of their aesthetic
strategies, we will think through the ways
in which an American identity has been
continuously constructed, deconstructed,
and reconstructed through literature in the contemporary era.
Prerequisite: Completion of Core, Area C1 requirement.
Completion of ENGL-192 requirement.
Meets the Minority Issues Requirement for the English
Department.
Prerequisite: Completion of Core, Area C1 requirement.
Completion of ENGL-192 requirement.
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