History and Literature 91r:  
Reading the British Empire, at Home and Abroad

Harvard University, H&L 97
Meegan Kennedy
Spring 2003

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SCHEDULE :

P = Primary Source, Literary
PH = Primary Source, History
C = Criticism or Theory

Feb 4:   INTRODUCTION

Design syllabus based on lists drawn up from earlier conversations,
and in coordination with Andy Muldoon for historical material being covered in junior tutorial.
Library instruction on research methods

Feb. 11:   Travel and the Progress of Knowledge

PL: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels , esp. books 1 and 3 (1726)
PH: Early travel narratives from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London ; select from list and access via JSTOR
C: Bruno Latour, from Science in Action

Feb. 18:   Orientalism

PL: Sydney Owenson, The Missionary (1811)
C: Edward Said, Orientalism

Feb. 25:   India from England, Part I

FIRST 10-pp PAPER DUE, in class
PL: Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814)
C: Edward Said, from Culture and Imperialism

March 4:   Empire and "Muscular Christianity"

PL: William Delafield Arnold, from Oakfield: Or, Fellowship in the East (1853)
PL: Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857)

March 11:    Criminality and Sensation

PL: Philip Meadowes Taylor, Confessions of a Thug (1839)
PH: W.H. Sleeman, excerpts from Rambles and Recollections of an Indian and "Report on Budhuk alias Bagree decoits, and other gang robbers by hereditary profession, and on the measures adopted by the government of India, for their suppression" (1844; 1849)

March 18:   India from England, Part II

SECOND 10-pp PAPER DUE, in class
PL: Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford (1853)

March 25:   No Meeting - Spring Break

April 1:   India from England, Part III

PL: Charlotte Yonge, The Clever Woman of the Family (1865)
PL: John Greenleaf Whittier, "The Pipes at Lucknow"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Defence of Lucknow" (1858)

April 8:   Indian Mysteries, Part I

PL: Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868)
PL: Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens, "The Perils of Certain English Prisoners," Household Words , Christmas 1857

JUNIOR ESSAY DUE 14 APRIL 2003 (Monday)

April 15:   Indian Mysteries, Part II

PL: Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890)
C:   Keep and Randall, "Addiction, Empire, and Narrative in Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four ,"   Novel 32.2 (Spring, 1999)

April 22:   Men in Africa

PL: H. Rider Haggard, She (1887)
PH: Henry Morton Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, vol. I (1878)

April 29:   Englishwomen Abroad

PL: Sara Jeanette Duncan, The Pool in the Desert (1903)
PH: Mary Kingsley, from Travels in West Africa (1897)

May 6:     Conclusion

FINAL 10-pp PAPER DUE, in class
Closing discussion

Requirements for the course :

* Weekly two-hour meeting to discuss the readings
* Weekly 2-pp response paper, to be emailed to MK by Monday midnight
* Three 10-pp papers, on topics to be agreed upon
*Coordinate with Andy Muldoon for preparation of junior essay

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