Department of English

Fulfills Distributional Course in Arts & Letters

In this course we move through a series of works of eighteenth-century prose fiction, or "novels," looking closely at issues of place and space as they operate within them. What interpretive values can we place on setting and location (public/private, interior/exterior, at home/abroad, city/country) in works of prose fiction written during this historical period? We will also look into the work of several twentieth-century theorists on the role of space and place in literature, to ground and to serve as starting points for our class discussions. Reading assignments will include works by Haywood, Smollett, Burney, Austen, and Habermas, de Certeau, Lefebvre. You will be expected to write and turn in weekly response papers and one longer paper (8-10 pages). You will also be responsible for an in-class presentation.