GENDER AND THE GENEALOGY OF THE NOVEL Fall 2015

Transcription

1 ENGLISH 254a Prof. Sue Lanser GENDER AND THE GENEALOGY OF THE NOVEL Fall 2015 Course Description Whether the novel originated in ancient Greece, Heiain Japan, or sixteenth-century Spain, it came into prominence in England during an Age of Enlightenment that spawned revolutions in politics, culture, economics, and everyday life. Among the revolutionary changes central to the novel was a new investment in female narrators and characters, underwritten but not entirely explained by the emergence of women as writers and readers. This course will explore the forms, functions, and focal interests of the early English novel with particular attention to constructions and deconstructions of the marriage plot as a site for literary and social struggle. We will ask why marriage became so prominent a thread in the rising novel and how the novel was shaped by, and arguably shaped, national and colonial agendas, mobilities of social class, new practices of literary circulation, emerging concepts of rights and of race, changing marriage laws, norms of sexuality, and patriarchal prerogatives. As we take up questions of liberty and propriety, difference and desire, we will scrutinize eighteenth-century fictional practices with an eye toward forging a (tentative and speculative) gendered genealogy of the English novel from Eliza Haywood to Charlotte Brontë and identify fruitful directions for scholarly inquiry. Books (in order of appearance): A note on editions: Your participation in class will be simpler if you choose the editions I have ordered (new or used), but I understand that you may want to acquire less expensive copies of some texts. I do, however, ask that you work with print rather than electronic texts in the classroom. Defoe, Roxana (1724), Oxford World s Classics Richardson, Clarissa ( ), Penguin, Fielding, Tom Jones (1749), Oxford World s Classics Burney, Evelina (1778), Oxford World s Classics Bage, Hermsprong (1796), Broadview [Anon], The Woman of Color (1808), Broadview, Austen, Persuasion (1818), Oxford World s Classics Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847), Oxford World s Classics Plus shorter readings posted to LATTE (and listed on the bibliography appended to this syllabus) Course Information: Class sessions: Wednesdays, 2 to 4:50 p.m. in Rabb 219 (Dubois Lounge) Contact information: lanser@brandeis.edu x Rabb 211 Office hours: Wednesdays, 1:00-2:00 pm and 5:00-6:00 pm; Tu and Th by appointment

2 Working Syllabus (watch LATTE for updates) Week Date Topics and Texts 1 2 Sept Marriage, Death, and the Rise of the Novel Haywood, The Double Marriage (1726) Watt, from The Rise of the Novel (1957) McKeon, Generic Transformation and Social Change (1985) 2 9 Sept Female Picaresque Defoe, Roxana (1724) Chapone, from Hardships of the English Laws in Relation to Wives (1735) McKeon, Historicizing Patriarchy (1995) Armstrong, from Desire and Domestic Fiction (1987) 3 16 Sept Novel Subjects Richardson, Clarissa (1747), Volumes I-II as abridged Fielding, Tom Jones (1749), Book I Gallagher, The Rise of Fictionality (2006) NO CLASS ON 23 SEPTEMBER 4 30 Sept The Wrongs of Woman Clarissa, Volumes III-V as abridged Flint, The Eighteenth-Century Novel and Print Culture (2005) Aravamudan, from Enlightened Orientalism (2012) 5 7 Oct Women and the Public Sphere Richardson, Clarissa, Volumes VI-VII as abridged Perry, from Novel Relations (2004) Bowers, Representing Resistance (2005) 6 14 Oct Country, City, Character Tom Jones, Books II-XII Wahrman, from The Making of the Modern Self (2004) Moretti, from The Way of the World (1987) 7 21 Oct (Il)legitimate Relations Tom Jones Books XIII-XVIII Rousseau, from Emile (1762) Scott, from Millenium Hall (1762) Guest, from Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism (2000) ENG 254 p. 2

3 Week Date Topics and Texts 8 28 Oct Gendering Englishness Burney, Evelina (1778) Smith, from Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Ragussis, Jews and Other Outlandish Englishmen (2000) NO CLASS ON 4 NOVEMBER preliminary thoughts on final project due 9 11 Nov Radical Sympathy Bage, Hermsprong (1796) Wollstonecraft, from The Wrongs of Woman (1798) Lanser, The Novel Body Politic (2005) Nov The Race for Fiction The Woman of Colour (1808) Wheeler, Racial Legacies (2005) NO CLASS ON 25 NOVEMBER Further thoughts on final project due 11 2 Dec The Gender of Power Austen, Persuasion (1818) Colley, Womanpower from Britons (1992) Moretti, from An Atlas of the European Novel (1998) 12 9 Dec The Sense of an Ending Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847) Spivak, Three Women s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism (1985) Armstrong, Gender Must Be Defended (2012) Dec Novel Genealogies Student presentations and peer editing workshop Course Requirements Attendance and active participation in class sessions. Your participation is essential to the success of this course. Please come to class thoroughly prepared to take an active role in discussion. I ask you not to expect to use a laptop during the seminar; if you have concerns about acquiring or printing the course readings, please let me know. ENG 254 p. 3

4 Postings to LATTE: Before midnight on the evening prior to each class, please post a paragraph posing a question, problem, or insight that you would like us to address in class. Postings should refer substantively to one or more of the day s readings but may also, of course, carry forward ideas and texts discussed earlier in the term. As help in managing your schedule, you may skip posting for any two class sessions. Required postings begin on September 9; if you post on September 2, you can take a third pass. Everyone is asked to read all the postings before each class session and, if you wish, to comment further. Team teaching: You will be asked to take part in a team-teaching project by co-leading 30 minutes of class time in a creative, illuminating, and interactive way (lecturing is not acceptable). You will have the opportunity to choose a session to your liking; team teaching begins in week 4. Position paper: Once during the semester you will be asked to present to the class a paper that helps to develop our understanding of the eighteenth-century novel s struggles with gender and the marriage plot. Presentations will be arranged to yield a semester-long conversation that builds our (admittedly limited) collective sense of the novel s genealogy. Your paper will need to draw on at least two works listed in the Auxiliary Readings section of LATTE. Seminar project: Rather than a full seminar paper, your culminating project will be the preliminary development of a paper, original in its promise and thus potentially publishable, on an approved topic related to the course. I will ask to meet with each of you individually in October to glean a sense of your interests and of projects that might dovetail with those interests. I will ask you to submit on November 4 an informal thought-piece about possible topics for the final project and on November 25 a narrowed-down sequel with bibliography. You will have the opportunity on December 16 both to present your ideas orally and to receive peer feedback on a brief segment of written text. The final project, which will consist of an initial five polished pages, a roadmap for the rest of the essay, and a full bibliography, will be due by December 23. Bibliography of Assigned Readings Primary Works Austen, Jane. Persuasion. London: John Murray, Bage, Robert. Hermsprong: or, Man As He Is Not. London: William Lane, Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell. London: Smith, Elder, & Co, Burney, Frances. Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady s Entrance into the World. London: T. Lowndes, Chapone, Sarah. From The Hardships of the English Laws In Relation to Wives. With an Explanation of the Original Curse of Subjection passed upon the Woman. In an Humble Address to the Legislature. London: W. Bowyer, ENG 254 p. 4

5 Defoe, Daniel. The Fortunate Mistress: Or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, afterwards call'd the Countess de Wintselsheim, in Germany. Being the person known by the name of the Lady Roxana, in the time of King Charles II. London: T. Warner et al., Fielding, Henry. The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling. London: A. Millar, Haywood, Eliza. The Double Marriage: or, the Fatal Release. A True Secret History. London: J. Roberts, Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa. Or, the History of a Young Lady. London: S. Richardson, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. From Emile, ou, De l éducation. Geneva, Scott, Sarah. From A Description of Millenium Hall, and the Country Adjacent. By a gentleman on his travels. London: J. Newbery, Smith, Adam. From The Theory of Moral Sentiments. and Bell, London: A. Millar; Edinburgh: Kincaid Wollstonecraft, Mary. From The Wrongs of Woman; or, Maria. In Posthumous Works of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. William Godwin. London: J. Johnson and G. G. and J. Robinson, The Woman of Colour. A Tale. London: Black, Perry, and Co., Theoretical and Critical Texts Armstrong, Nancy. From Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, "Gender Must Be Defended. The South Atlantic Quarterly 111 (2012): Aravamudan, Srinivas. From Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel. University of Chicago Press, Chicago: Bowers, Toni. Representing Resistance: British Seduction Stories, In A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture, ed. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, Colley, Linda. From Britons: Forging the Nation New Haven: Yale University Press, Flint, Christopher. The Eighteenth-Century Novel and Print Culture: A Proposed Modesty. In A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture, ed. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, ENG 254 p. 5

6 Gallagher, Catherine. The Rise of Fictionality. In The Novel, ed. Franco Moretti. Princeton: Princeton University Press, I: Guest, Harriet. From Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, Lanser, Susan S. The Novel Body Politic. In A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture, ed. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, McKeon, Michael. Generic Transformation and Social Change: Rethinking the Rise of the Novel. Cultural Critique 1 (Autumn, 1985): Historicizing Patriarchy: The Emergence of Gender Difference in England Eighteenth-Century Studies 28 (1995): Moretti, Franco. From The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. London: Verso, From An Atlas of the European Novel. London: Verso, Perry, Ruth. From Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinship in English Literature and Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ragussis, Michael. Jews and Other "Outlandish Englishmen": Ethnic Performance and the Invention of British Identity under the Georges. Critical Inquiry 26 (2000): Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Three Women s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism. Inquiry 12 (1985): Critical Wahrman, Dror. From The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Watt, Ian. From The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. University of California Press, Berkeley: Wheeler, Roxanne. Racial Legacies: The Speaking Countenance and the Character Sketch in the Novel. In A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture, ed. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, ENG 254 p. 6