Listed in: English, as ENGL-250
Judith E. Frank (Section 01)
An introduction to the study of the novel, through the exploration of a variety of critical terms (point of view, narrative structure, tone, realism, irony, genre fiction) and methodologies (feminist, Marxist, post-colonial). We will draw on a selection of novels in English for illustration and discussion; possible authors include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Kazuo Ishiguro, John Edgar Wideman, Thomas Pynchon, Emma Donoghue, David Foster Wallace. A question to which we will continually return: with what kinds of expectations for immersion and identification do we approach the novel–which, unlike poetry, we often consider a relatively easy and transparent form–and what kinds of pleasures might be gained when novels baffle or frustrate those expectations through their difficulty or sheer strangeness?
Preference given to sophomores. Limited to 35 students. Spring semester. Professor Frank.
If Overenrolled: Preference given to sophomores.