A kurzus címe: Challenges of the British Neo-Victorian Novel & Alternative Histories in Literature – NEW, MA
Az óra helye: Angol szemináriumi szoba - 3302 (Egyetem u. 2.)
Az óra időpontja: csütörtök 8:00-9:30
Az első óra időpontja: 2025. szeptember 11.
Az oktató: Dr. Szélpál Lívia Klára egyetemi adjunktus
Az oktatótanszéke: Angol Tanszék
Az oktató elérhetősége: szelpal.livia@szte.hu
A kurzusról:
This course explores the worlds of contemporary British Neo-Victorian novels. The course introduces the genres of Neo-Victorian novels and alternative histories by critically analyzing selected contemporary British novels. The neo-Victorian narratives consciously reflect on the phenomenon of reinterpretation, and by constructing a contemporary interpretation of history, they also offer a social critical dimension. By focusing on the Victorian era, the nostalgia and escapism felt for the glorified past appear together with the need for critical reinterpretation. “Alternative history” uses the past as seen from the present perspective to create alternative fictional futures rooted in current social and political problems. Both Neo-Victorian narratives and alternative histories invite readers to a reinvention of the cultural heritage of history.
The course scrutinizes representative works of the field, focusing on topics such as the development of the issue of feminism, gender roles, sensational literature, pastiche, Victoriana, speculative fiction, border thinking, sexuality, (neo)imperialism, intertextuality, the blending of fact and fiction, contemporary societal issues, marginalized voices, decolonizing literature, detective novel, the Victorian spectacle, sensationalism, and the exploration of hidden histories.
Aims: The seminar will also be an exercise in comparative thinking, analyzing contemporary British Neo-Victorian writers’ texts and their historical, social, and literary influences. Among the topics of Neo-Victorian narratives are the issues of sexuality, the redefinition of political power in the light of decolonization, the subsequent voicing of marginalized members of society, and the lives and texts of canonical 19th-century writers.
Részletes, hetekre bontott tematika:
Week 1 – Sept 11
Topic (1): Introduction to the Course
Discussion Points:
- General Introduction: discussion of class structure and aims
- Discussion of Basic Terminology
- Introduction to the course. Syllabus, readings, assignments
***
I. Theory & Methodology
Week 2 – Sept 18
Topic (2): Fashioning the Neo-Victorian
Mandatory Reading:
Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanna Gruss. “Introduction: Fashioning the Neo-Victorian—Neo-Victorian Fashions.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 1-17.
***
Week 3 – Sept 25
Topic (3): Revisiting the Victorians: the Traumas of Definition, Delimitation and Imitation
Mandatory Reading:
Kohlke, Marie-Luise. “Mining the Neo-Victorian Vein Prospecting for Gold, Buried Treasure and Uncertain Metal.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 21-37.
***
II. Neo-Victorian Narratives
Week 4 – Oct 2: No class due to an abroad scholarship, topic 4 of the seminar will be discussed later via individual online exercise.
Topic (4): Postmodern Approaches to Victorian Characters and Settings
Mandatory Reading:
Renk, Kathleen. Women Writing the Neo-Victorian Novel Erotic “Victorians.” Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. 1-22.
Primary Reading:
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea.
***
Week 5 – Oct. 9
Topic (5): Narratives of Sexual Trauma
Mandatory Reading:
Cox, Jessica. “Narratives of Sexual Trauma in Contemporary Adaptations of The Woman in White.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 137-150.
Primary Reading:
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea.
***
Week 6 – Oct. 16
(Topic 6): Theorizing the Neo-Victorian-at-Sea
Mandatory Reading:
Ho, Elizabeth. “The Neo-Victorian-at-Sea Towards a Global Memory of the Victorian.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 165-178.
Primary Reading:
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea.
***
Week 7 – Oct 23: PUBLIC HOLIDAY
***
Week 8 – Oct 30
Topic (7): Stories of Parallel Lives
Mandatory Reading:
Underwood, Ted. “Stories of Parallel Lives and the Status Anxieties of Contemporary Historicism.” Representations, vol. 85, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1–20. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2004.85.1.1. Accessed 17 Mar. 2025.
Primary Reading:
Byatt, A. S. Possession. 1990. New York: Vintage, 2002.
***
Week 9 – Nov 6
Topic (8): (Neo)-Victorian Lives
Mandatory Reading:
Steveker, Lena. “‘Eminent Victorians’ and Neo-Victorian Fictional Biography.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 67-78.
Primary Reading:
Byatt, A. S. Possession. 1990. New York: Vintage, 2002.
***
Week 10 – Nov 13
Topic (9): Public and Private Histories: blending of facts and fiction
Mandatory Reading:
Shiffman, Adrienne. “‘Burn What They Should Not See’: The Private Journal as Public Text in A. S. Byatt’s Possession.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 20, no. 1, 2001, pp. 93–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/464469. Accessed 17 Mar. 2025.
Primary Reading:
Byatt, A. S. Possession. 1990. New York: Vintage, 2002.
***
III. ALTERNATIVE HISTORY IN LITERATURE
Week 11 – Nov 20
Topic (10): Readings of Charles Dickens
Mandatory Reading:
- Kaplan, Cora. Coda: “The Firm of Charles and Charles—Authorship, Science and Neo-Victorian Masculinities.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 193-203.
- Smith, Zadie. 2023b. “On Killing Charles Dickens.” New Yorker. July 3. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/10/on-killing-charles-dickens. Accessed 18 March. 2025.
Primary Reading:
Smith, Zadie. The Fraud. Penguin Random House UK., 2023
***
Week 12 – Nov 27
Topic (11): The Pseudo-Historical Novel
Mandatory Reading:
Arias, Rosario. “Traces and Vestiges of the Victorian Past in Contemporary Fiction.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 111-122.
Primary Reading:
Smith, Zadie. The Fraud. Penguin Random House UK., 2023
The one-page research paper proposal is due in the CooSpace as a written assignment.
***
Week 13 – Dec 4
Topic (12): Nostalgia: Present-ing Absence
Mandatory Reading:
Enderwitz, Anne and Doris Feldmann, “Nostalgia and Material Culture: Presenting the Past in Cranford.” In Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014, 51-63.
Primary Reading:
Smith, Zadie. The Fraud. Penguin Random House UK., 2023
***
Week 14
Topic (13): Conclusion, summary
Olvasmányok:
Mandatory Readings:
- Boehm-Schnitker, Nadine and Susanne Gruss eds. Neo-Victorian Literature and Culture. Immersions and Revisitations. New York: Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-415-70830-2
- Renk, Kathleen. Women Writing the Neo-Victorian Novel Erotic “Victorians.” Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. ISBN 978-3-030-48286-2
- Shiffman, Adrienne. “‘Burn What They Should Not See’: The Private Journal as Public Text in A. S. Byatt’s Possession.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 20, no. 1, 2001, pp. 93–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/464469. Accessed 17 Mar. 2025. ISSN 07327730
- Smith, Zadie. 2023b. “On Killing Charles Dickens.” New Yorker. July 3. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/10/on-killing-charles-dickens. Accessed 18 March. 2025.
- Underwood, Ted. “Stories of Parallel Lives and the Status Anxieties of Contemporary Historicism.” Representations, vol. 85, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1–20. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2004.85.1.1. Accessed 17 Mar. 2025. ISSN 07346018
Primary Readings:
- Byatt, A. S. Possession. 1990. New York: Vintage, 2002. ISBN 9780679735908
- Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. 1966. London: Penguin, 1968. ISBN 978-0233958668
- Smith, Zadie. The Fraud. Penguin Random House UK., 2023. ISBN 978-0241337004
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