Fall 2013
last updated: 8/21/13
Tuesdays, 7-9:30 pm
3001A Wescoe Hall
Course
description
and texts:
This
course will focus on British and Irish
literature of the late 19th century and early 20th centuries,
a
time of great technological innovation in a number of different arenas
including media, transport, and weaponry. We will be focused in
particular on the ways in which technologies such as telegraphy,
electricity, printing, travel, and photography are figured in the
literature and culture of the British Isles at the end of the 19th and
beginning of the 20th century through the first World War. Students who
plan to specialize in American or other national literatures are
encouraged to consider research projects that extend beyond the British
Isles. Students will be expected to write a short annotated
bibliography, a one- to
two-page research proposal, and a final seminar paper of approximately
article length. Students will also be expected to participate in
classroom discussion and to give an oral presentation of research in
progress in the final two weeks of class. Click this link for
book
list, which is available for purchase at the bookstore or online:
http://ku-pc.verbasoftware.com/comparison?id=38068
1. 15%: Attendance, participation in discussion (online and in class);
2. 85%: annotated bibliography; prospectus; oral presentation; research paper (60%). Please see plagiarism policy below. Full description of project(s) will be available on Blackboard.
Reading and assignment schedule
This
schedule is likely to change. For the most accurate reading
and assignment
schedule, pay attention to updates given in class. Updates
will eventually
be reflected on this website.
All readings should be completed by the day
listed on the syllabus. Online discussions are listed on the
date on which they are likely to start; the due date for participating
in the discussion for credit is listed in parentheses (although of
course you are welcome to discuss beyond the deadline).
August
27: Introduction.
Course
outline and goals.
Recommended:
"Introduction" to Vibrant Matter,
Jane Bennett, via Bb.
"Introduction: Writing Things Down, Storing Them Up," Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines,
Lisa Gitelman, via Bb.
September
3: Cameras
Amy
Levy, The
Romance of a Shop.
Articles: Introduction; Appendix A: Contemporary Reviews;
Appendix D: The Woman Question; Appendix E: Victorian Photography.
(Introduction and back matter in Broadview edition.)
Article: "A Democracy of the Image: Photographic Portraiture and
Commodity Production," John Tagg, via Bb.
Recommended
sites:
National Media Museum (UK), Royal Photographic Society photographs by
date, http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/Collection/Photography/RoyalPhotographicSociety.aspx?vb=date
Victorian Post-Mortem Photography, http://io9.com/the-strangest-tradition-of-the-victorian-era-post-mort-472772709
September
10: (cont.)
Amy
Levy, The
Romance of a Shop.
Article: "A Literature of Its Own: Time, Space, and
Narrative Mediations in Victorian Photography," Daniel Novak, via Bb.
September
17: Telegraphs
Selections
from Lightning Flashes and Electric
Dashes: A Volume of Choice Telegraphic Literature, Humor, Fun, Wit,
& Wisdom, online at https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=OhFAAAAAYAAJ&rdid=book-OhFAAAAAYAAJ&rdot=1
Article: "Telegraphy's Corporeal Fictions," Katherine Stubbs, via
Bb.
September
24: Typewriters
Grant
Allen (under pseudonym), The
Type-writer Girl
Article: "Sister of the Type: The Feminist Collective in Grant Allen's The Type-writer Girl," S.
Brooke Cameron, via Bb.
Website: The Virtual Typewriter Museum, http://www.typewritermuseum.org/collection/
October 1: Kodaks, Trains,
Telegraphs, Phonographs...
Bram
Stoker, Dracula
Article: "Vampiric Typewriting: Dracula
and its Media," Jennifer Wicke, via Bb.
October
8: (cont.)
Bram
Stoker, Dracula
Annotated
bibliography due.
October 15:
FALL
BREAK; class does not meet
October
22: Bicycles
HG Wells, "The Wheels of
Chance: A Bicycling Idyll," online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1264
October 29: Imagined
Aeroplanes, Imagined War Machines
HG Wells, The
War in the Air
Recommended: Wells, "Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical
and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought" http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19229/19229-h/19229-h.htm
Prospectus
due.
November
5: (cont.)
HG Wells, The War in the Air
Article: excerpt from Voices
Prophesying War, Clarke, via Bb.
November
12: Imagined Machines
E.M.
Forster, "The Machine Stops," online at http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
Marinetti, Futurist Manifesto, http://www.italianfuturism.org/manifestos/foundingmanifesto/
December 3:
Research
presentations.
December 10: Last
day.
Research
presentations.
Evaluations.
December
17:
Final paper due.
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