Skip to main content
Department of English
Search
Log in
Navigation
About
Current Office Hours
Diversity Resources
English Library
Faculty Statement Archives
Internal Dept Resources
Medieval and Early Modern Studies
University Writing Program
Video Guides & Worksheets
Visit us on Facebook
Major/Minor in English
Advising
Creative Writing Application
Honors Program
Internships
Literary Magazines
Major Requirements Guide & FAQ
Minor Requirements
Study Abroad
Why Major in English?
MFA in Creative Writing
Admissions
Events, Prizes, and Resources
MFA Program Faculty
Newly Admitted Grad Students
Resources
Ph.D. in Literature
About
Admissions
Newly Admitted Grad Students
PhD Alumni Directory
Resources
Courses & Schedules
People
News & Events
Off the Syllabus Podcast
Recent News
Contests
Contest Winners
Previous Contest Winners
Newsletters
You are here
Home
»
Courses & Schedules
English 252 - Fall, 2020
Victorian Literature
Class Information
Instructor:
Miller, Elizabeth
CRN:
53283
Time:
W 3:10-6:00
Breadth:
Later British
Focus:
Genre, Interdiscipline, Method
Description
Energy, Environment, and Victorian Literature
This course will approach Victorian literature through the lens of the energy humanities and the environmental humanities, considering the forms and genres of nineteenth-century fiction in terms of the rise of fossil-fueled modernity. The Industrial Revolution, which happened first in coal-rich Britain, has long been seen as a turning point in environmental history. This course will revisit Victorian literature from the perspective of contemporary environmental crisis to ask what environmental thought can gain by looking to literature, especially to literature from the moment when energy path dependencies were still hardening into the global system of fossil capitalism that we inhabit today. Situating ourselves in the broader field of literature and the environment, we will read a variety of realist and speculative genres of fiction including provincial realism, the industrial novel, science fiction, hollow earth fiction, and the urban Gothic novel.
Grading
Class presentation, participation in discussion, seminar paper.
Texts
Wuthering Heights
, Emily Brontë
Hard Times
, Charles Dickens
The Coming Race
, Edward Bulwer-Lytton
News from Nowhere
, William Morris
"The Machine Stops"
, E. M. Forster
The War of the Worlds
, H. G. Wells
The Picture of Dorian Gray
, Oscar Wilde
The Mill on the Floss
, George Eliot