ENG 337 - Studies in British Culture

The Home Front: British Literature and Culture of World War II
World War II, the deadliest conflagration in history, destroyed the United Kingdom’s role as one of the great global empires, and in effect also forever transformed its class system, its system of government, and its place in the world order. Nevertheless, the British people to this day view their shattering wartime experience as one of the great unifying and refining experiences in their culture and their history. This course will look at literary works brought forth from the wartime experience of British civilians from 1939 to 1945 and its aftermath, paying particular attention to its expression through late literary modernism and its contextualization through the experience of war. In addition to brief critical and historical readings, we will look at fictions by authors such as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Penelope Fitzgerald, Henry Green, Muriel Spark, and Graham Greene. We will also watch British commercial and propaganda films from the era by directors such as Humphrey Jennings, Alberto Cavalcanti, David Lean, and the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and we will read essays relevant to the period by Woolf, Bowen, George Orwell, and Mollie Panter-Downes.

The Victorian Fin de siècle
For the British Empire, the Victorian fin de siècle (or “end of the century”) was a transitional decade during which the roles of art, the family, men’s and women’s social and sexual roles, and empire were radically questioned and even reconceived. The period has accordingly become the focus of much critical interest for literary scholars, particularly those working within the fields of gender, queer, and postcolonial theory. This course will look at this great period of literary and cultural decadence and renewal by having us read works by such important figures of the age as (potentially) Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Vernon Lee, Amy Levy, Richard Marsh, H. G. Wells, and Oscar Wilde, alongside a variety of historical, critical, and theoretical writings.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s):

The Home Front: Two ENG or LIT courses at the 200 level or higher
All other topics: Two ENG courses at the 200 level or higher

Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Repeatable for Credit: May be taken up to 4 times for credit if different topics.
Notes: Not all topics offered every year. Review schedule of classes for availability. Review specific descriptions for applicability to department requirements.
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).