English 159 - Spring, 2012

Topics in the Novel

Topic: Revolution and Revolt

Class Information

Instructor: Jensen, Kristian
CRN: 94328
Time: TR 1:40-3:00
Location: 115 Wellman

Description

What different factors lead people into revolution? How and why do revolutions begin? What do diverse revolutions have in common, if anything? Along with these questions, this course examines revolution in different contexts, both real and imagined, and interrogates the varying origins of revolutionary impulses. For example, revolutions are often against power structures, but they can also challenge ideas, beliefs, or ideology. The novels the course investigates span from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, and contemporary revolutions around will also be considered in relation to those of the past. The course will also consider how factors like race, gender, culture, religion, and sexual orientation, relate to the dynamics of revolution. Arguments about power and class by Marx, Foucault and others will be contemplated in relation to the spirit of revolt. Is power illusory? Are revolutions inevitable? Are we moving increasingly toward the dystopic models of Huxley and Orwell, or are their oversights in these nightmarish prophetic visions of the future?

Please purchase the specific text editions selected for this course. See campus bookstore listings.

Grading

several one-page papers, two essays, group presentation, final exam

Texts

Benito Cereno, Herman Melville
The Secret Agent , Joseph Conrad
The Iron Heel, Jack London
Brave New World, Aldus Huxley
Native Son, Richard Wright
1984, George Orwell
Course Reader