Circulating Bodies: Commodities, Prostitutes, and Slaves in 18th-Century England
ENGL 314
Fall 2011
| Section:
01
|
In the newly booming consumer culture of 18th-century England, people were constantly buying and selling things--bespoke suits and manufactured trinkets as well as prostitutes and slaves. This course will explore the period's circulating bodies as they were passed from hand to hand, valued and revalued, used, abused, and discarded. We will trace processes of circulation in 18th-century novels and poetry and listen as the "things" themselves tell stories: in the period, commodities, prostitutes, and slaves all wrote memoirs (or had ones imagined for them). We will read these texts alongside contemporary debates about economics, abolition, and women's rights, and we will return again and again to fundamental questions about personal identity, individual agency and passivity, commodification, objectification, and the very limits of the human. |
|
Essential Capabilities:
Interpretation, Writing
This is a writing-intensive course that will develop students' skills in literary interpretation.
|
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
|
Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENGL) |
|
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Aphra Behn, OROONOKO
Alexander Pope, THE RAPE OF THE LOCK
Daniel Defoe, ROXANA
John Cleland, MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE
Anon., THE HISTORY AND ADVENTURES OF A LADY'S SLIPPERS AND SHOES
Thomas Bridges, ADVENTURES OF A BANK-NOTE
Olaudah Equiano, THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO
Shorter poems by Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, and James Grainger.
|
Examinations and Assignments:
Weekly short writing assignments and two papers (one 5-7pp. and one 10-12pp.) |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course meets the English major requirements of Literary History II and Literatures of Difference and contributes to the British Literature concentration requirements; it offers the Research Option for Honors thesis writers. |
| Instructor(s): Smith,Courtney Weiss Times: ..T.R.. 09:00AM-10:20AM; Location: FISK116; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 8 | JR major: 8 | | |
| Seats Available: 2 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 1 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 0 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
|
|