Friday, February 22, 2008

Feb. 21 Discussion: Kipling's KIM

In the early pages of the novel, the woman who looks after Kim "insisted with tears that he should werar European clothes--trousers, a shirt, and a battered hat. Kim found it easier to slip into Hindu or Mohammedan garb when engaged on certain business." Explain the tension between them.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Victorian Conversations

Dear Students:

You are encouraged to enter the on-line conversation about the works we're reading in the course or related contexts: cultural, social, religious, political or economic.
Every two weeks, I will post a question or topic for you to respond to and to enter into conversation with one another. I will also enter the conversation, at times. Announcements of relevant lectures,exhibitions, movies, conferences, publications, and competitions will also be posted at the beginning of the blog.
You are expected to join the conversation every week or two, and to add to the announcements, posting anything of relevance to the course.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Feb.4 Discussion: NONSENSE

What is the value of the NON-SENSE in Wonderland to the Victorian readers of Lewis Carroll's /Alice/? Discuss, offering examples.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Class Description/Organizing Questions/Requirements

English 793: Victorian Conversations Spring 2008
P. Laurence

Victorian novels as a genre offer us an opportunity to observe the socialization of the individual. Often these individuals are uncertain of their place in society: orphans, the poor, women, Irish, Indians, Jews, and Muslims, among others. These works also offer us a geographic structure in which England is placed at the center, and English colonies at the periphery. Certain themes emerge that relate to homelessness, class, gender, imperialism, colonialism, orientalism, civilization, progress, and modernity. The reading of Victorian and some Modern works will be paired in this course to illuminate these literary and cultural issues and conversations.

For example, there is a conversation about British orientalism, colonialism, Irish, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhism in the shift from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim to Mulk Raj Anand’s The Untouchables; another conversation about how minorities are represented in the Victorian novel in the pairing of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea.

Some of the questions that will organize this course are: What shift in sensibility, ideas and narration can be observed in these paired readings? What novels can be viewed as sites of exchange for international dialogues? How is history and time represented in Victorian and Modern writing? How did English writers benefit from exposure to oriental cultures and literatures? How did other cultures and literatures benefit from contact with British culture and novels? Can we hear a polyphony of literary and cultural voices in the British novels to be read, as theorized by Mikhail Bakhtin? What kind literary dreamwork-- imagined communities, the way in which we imagine people, ideas and communities in other nations, as posited by Benedict Anderson—can be detected in these novels? How is the emerging issue of the minority within both a historical and literary issue? How does it change the culture and narration of the Victorian and Modernist British novel as well as transnational writing?

Requirements: One short, one longer paper, and one oral report required. Final exam. Regular attendance and class participation as well as responses to discussion questions on the class blog. Two absences allowed.

Office hours: Thursdays: 2:30-3:30 or by appointment (Boylan 2, Room 157)

E-mail: plaurence@rcn.com

Blog: Official class handouts on line. Post responses to bi-weekly topics; join the class conversation.
BCVictorian@blogspot.com

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Selected Bibliography/Web Resources

English 753 X: Victorian Conversations

Selected Bibliography (some will be on Reserve in the BC Library)

Agrawai, B. ed. Mulk Raj Anand: Father of Indian English Fiction (2006).

*Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel (1987)

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities.

*Barber, Jill. Children in Victorian Times (2006).

*Darwin, Charles. Origin of Species (1859)

DiBello, Patrizia. Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts (2007).


Gallagher, Catherine. The Body Economic: Life and Economy in the Victorian Novel (2006).

Gilbert, Pamela. Cholera and Nation: Doctoring the Social Body in Victorian England (2007).

*Marttineau, Harriet. British Rules in India: A Historical Sketch (1857).

*Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1861)

*Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism (1862).

Mufi, Aamir. Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and Post-Colonial Modernity (2007).

*Phillips, Caryl. New World Order: Essays (West Indies)

Pike, David. Subterranean Cities: The World Beneath Paris and London, 1800-1945 (2005).

*Richard, Thomas. Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851-1914 (ch.1, The Great Exhibition of 1851).

*Rose, Phyllis. Parallel Lives:Five Victorian Marriages (1984).

*Rosenthal, Michael. The Character Factory: Baden Powell’s Boy Scouts.

*Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands.


*Said, Edward. Orientalism.
Culture & Imperialism

Thompson, Edward. The Other Side of the Medal

*Wilson, Edmund. The Wound and the Bow (childhoods of Dickens and Kipling).

Web Resources:

*Afghan Wars (related to Kim)
http://www.bl.uk/collections/afghan/introduction.html

Dickens Page (Mitsuharu Matsuoka, Japan)

*Froude, James Anthony. “The English in the West Indies.
(WEB www.victorianprose.org)

Holmes: “Discovering Sherlock Holmes webpage;” subscribe for free and read weekly installments like a Victorian Reader
http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/subscribed.asp?pid=30201

*Miller, J. Hillis. “Graphic or Verbal: A Dilemma
http://www.altx.com/ebr/rbr7/7miller/index.html

*The Penny Magazine (working-class periodical) (WEB)
http://www.history.rochester.edu/pennymag/

Victorian Literature Studies Archive (concordances for authors)
Victorian.lang.nagoyu-u.ac.jp/

*Victorian Research Web. Excellent source of information on newspapers, census data, and you can join a Victorian lit discussion group.
http://victorianresearch.org/

Victorian Sensation Fiction Online (Andrew Mactavish, U of Alberta)
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/sensatio.htm

*Victorian Web (Brown University): very good reference and background information, many topics—religion, science, visual arts, history)
http://www.victorianweb.org/

Victoriana. Cultural info on the Victorian period (decorating, history, fashion etc.)
http://www.victoriana

Voice of the Shuttle
http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=3#id2751

The Workhouse (information on the Poor Laws, Work House Life)
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

*Starred items are recommended for oral reports

Monday, February 4, 2008

Sherlock Holmes Stories On-Line: Sign up

Read Sherlock Holmes, the Victorian detective, stories like a Victorian Reader in weekly installments. This week, Feb.4-10, sign up on the Sherlock Holmes webpage, address below. Read the installments each week, and we will discuss them in class as we go along.

“Discovering Sherlock Holme" webpage: subscribe and read weekly installments:
http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/subscribed.asp?pid=30201