Studies in a Nineteenth-Century Genre
Term 1
MWF, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
In this course, we will read Victorian fiction of the fantastic: fantasy, science fiction, and ghost and horror stories. We will read tales of the uncanny, the marvelous, the supernatural, the monstrous, and the weird, as we consider why genres of the fantastic flourished in the period. Readings will include George Eliot’s Lifted Veil, Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray; Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, H.G. Wells’s Island of Dr. Moreau, and short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and others.
Requirements include one essay, a mid-term and a final, a brief presentation, and regular attendance and participation in class discussion.
