Victorian Fictions of Consciousness

Fall 2009 ENGL 2560Q S01

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Instructor: Vanessa L. Ryan

Please check the Detailed Class Information for up to date information about this course.

Information on meeting times for this course can be found on Course Schedule at http://selfservice.brown.edu

Course Description

Victorian novels, Brontë through James, with an emphasis on the ways in which novels engage 19th-century theories of mind and psychology, looking at such central concepts as memory, will, sensation, and perception. Examines the importance of form and the subgenres of Victorian fiction (Bildungsroman, sensation novel, multiplot novel) in the construction of concepts of selfhood and consciousness. Attention also to the place of consciousness in Victorian and 20th-century theories of the novel. This course will also serve as an introduction to working on topics in science and literature.

Instructor's Description

This seminar is open to graduate students only. (In response to undergraduate interest, I am considering teaching an undergraduate version in the following year, subject to departmental curriculum needs.)

Readings and Required Texts

Novels likely to be considered:

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Charlotte Bront�, Vilette
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Henry James, The Golden Bowl
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway