ENGL 52.21 Popular Fiction and the Culture of Empire

The nineteenth century saw an explosion in the diversity and commercial potential of popular fiction. Detective fiction, science fiction, and the Gothic novel are a few of the genres that came into their own during this period, partly as a result of their ability to evoke the fantasies and anxieties of Victorian Britain and its empire. In this course we will think about the relationship of popular texts to imperial visions of race, sexuality, exploration, evolution, extinction, and invasion. We will also look at the relationship between fiction, the commercialization of publishing and the emergence of new media technologies like photography and film. Writers may include Mary Braddon, H. Rider Haggard, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Machen, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Marie Corelli.

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LIT

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Course Group II