English 125D

Other Readings and Media

Conrad, J.: Heart of Darkness; Woolf, V.: Mrs. Dalloway; Robbe-Grillet, A.: Jealousy; Rushdie, S.: Satanic Verses; Amis, M.: Time's Arrow; Barker, P.: Regeneration; Dangarembga, T.: Nervous Conditions; Coetzee, J.M.: Disgrace; a course reader.

Description

"Novels take a really long time to read, and they are filled with lies, or, more politely, fictions. Why write novels? Why read them? If you can ask these questions, and at the same time and without hesitation look forward to reading novels, then this is your class. What does the novel do for us that, say, poetry or anthropology or sociology or psychology or economics cannot? We'll look at a range of novels spanning the 20th century from Conrad to Coetzee, with a special focus on innovation and experimentation in narrative technique (after all, the word ""novel"" also means ""new,"" and the restless drive for novelty is one of the novel's central characteristics). Concurrently, we'll study a selection of criticism that aims to define and understand the novel as a generic, historical and sociological phenomenon. "