Department of English

An in-depth look at two loosely-styled movements of the late Victorian period. We’ll consider, among other questions, the reception of Darwin; the New Imperialism, scientific racism, and the discourse of degeneration; the influence of French symbolism; mass culture and mass movements; anti-industrialism and utopia; the New Woman and the Woman Question; the rise and repression of incipient queer culture. Fiction by, for example, Huysmans, Wilde, Schreiner, Hardy, and Stoker; poetry by D. G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne, and Field; essays by Ruskin, Arnold, Pater, Nordau, Wilde, and others.