Hi all! George Eliot is running in 2023/4. Please email me if you have any questions or concerns.
Convenor - Dr Michael Meeuwis
George Eliot’s many readers know of her interest in presenting something like a vision of a society: an account of how individuals function within a wider social pattern, figured variously as a web or a labyrinth. This module offers the opportunity for a slow reading of all of Eliot's major fiction.In a different academic era, we'd call this something like "George Eliot's vision of a society." In our current moment, I'm interested in how nineteenth-century literature invented our categories of social analysis—and indeed how nineteenth-century literature might give us new, or at least still-useful, ideas for doing so. I'm also interested in how George Eliot fits into our understanding of the contemporary Midlands.
Assessment:
Intermediate Year:
100% assessed (2 x 3500-word essay)
Final Year:
100% assessed (2 x 4000-word essay)
Essays are independent research projects developed in consultation your module tutor.
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17. Outline Syllabus
Term One:
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Week
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Primary Text
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Secondary Reading
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1:
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George Levine, ed., The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot (to be dipped into throughout class; in particular for week one, "Introduction" and "A Woman of Many Names") |
James English, “Everywhere and Nowhere”
Elaine Freedgood, “Fictional Settlements: Footnotes, Metalepsis, and the Colonial Effect”
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2:
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Adam Bede
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Strauss, The Life of Jesus, trans. George Eliot (Byatt and Warren 447-458)
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3:
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Adam Bede
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4:
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Adam Bede
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Karl Marx, The German Ideology (shortened version), Chapter One, "Feuerbach"
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5:
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The Mill on the Floss
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Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology, "Is there a social science?"
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7:
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The Mill on the Floss
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8:
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The Mill on the Floss
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9:
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Silas Marner
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10:
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Silas Marner
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Term Two:
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Week
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Primary
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Secondary Reading
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1:
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Romola, introduction and chapters 1-3
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Raymond Williams, The Sociology of Culture, "Towards a Sociology of Culture" and "Institutions" |
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2:
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Felix Holt
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Raymond Williams, The Sociology of Culture, "Formations," "Means of Production," and "Reproduction"
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3:
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Felix Holt
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4:
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Middlemarch
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Stuart Hall, "The Work of Representation"
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5:
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Middlemarch
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Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art, "The Conquest of Autonomy"
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7:
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Middlemarch
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8:
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Daniel Deronda
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9:
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Daniel Deronda
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10:
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Daniel Deronda
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