English 668: Modern British Novel

Prof. Kathryn Conrad
Spring 1998
MWF 12:30-1:20  *  4023 Wescoe
Office hours:  MWF 3:30-4:30, 2035 Wescoe

Course Description

Many Modernist novelists broke away from traditional linear narrative form; others chose to adapt it to their own ends, often to represent an individual subject struggling against oppressive ideological systems. In this course, we will read a number of Modernist novels as well as some more contemporary (post-WWII) novels written by those who have worked with and challenged the Modernist tradition. Our particular focus will be the relationship between narrative, subjectivity, and authority. Among the questions we will consider are the following: how do these writers negotiate their own authority while presenting challenges to accepted cultural and literary narratives? What is the relationship between narrative coherence and the coherence of the subject? How can narrative be put to the service of feminist, queer, postcolonial projects?

Texts

Note changes.

• Conrad, The Secret Sharer
• Forster, Maurice
• Joyce, Ulysses        (and recommended to accompany Ulysses: Blamires, The New Bloomsday Book)
• Lessing, The Golden Notebook
• Loy, Insel
• Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
• Rushdie, Midnight's Children
• Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Supplemental critical readings will be assigned and made available periodically.

Online Resources

• 20th-century British and Irish Literature links (Jack Lynch, U Penn)
• Theory links (Jack Lynch, U Penn)
• Hypertext sources (Jack Lynch, U Penn)

Requirements

Students will be expected to deliver one substantial presentation, participate in class and possibly list-server discussion, and write one critical paper of 20-25 pp. (10 pp. paper plus a take-home final for undergraduates).