Παρουσίαση/Προβολή

(ENL640) -  Χρυσή Μαρίνου

Περιγραφή Μαθήματος

This course offers students the opportunity to study the twentieth century political novel, focusing on authors of different origin (UK, USA, Canada), various ideological perspectives, and pertinent political issues. The century of ideology, revolutionary movements, and the two world wars produced writing that transcended the nineteenth century social novel, exploring and critiquing the essence of modernity. The first novel to be discussed is Dorothy Richardson’s 1919 The Tunnel, the fourth in the sequence of thirteen novels that constitute Pilgrimage. Through the lens of The Tunnel’s New Woman politics, our reading centres on democracy, women’s professional rights, and imperialism hearkening back to what Eric Hobsbawm terms “the Age of Empire.” In articulating the idea of “cosmopolis,” Richardson’s heroine embodies the impact of ideology on the human subject, while The Tunnel becomes an archive of social relations under the capitalist condition exemplifying the socius in relation to the polis. We next move to Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole (1933) and its representation of the life of the unemployed in the British industrial North highlighting the pervasiveness of political indifference and ignorance. Salford, as one of the earliest industrial centres in England, becomes a case in point for de-industrialization and depression. The potential and/or boundaries of the politicised working subject within the capitalist context and the blackmail of poverty are the themes highlighted in this work. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1931) introduces the genre of utopia/dystopia through its exploration of social engineering and population control. Huxley’s emphasis on biopolitics is also sustained in Ray Bradbury’s and Margaret Atwood’s texts. Bradbury’s 1953 Fahrenheit 451 brings us to the dystopian part of the course and the distortion of the idea of progress. The manipulation of the apathetic masses and the rise of totalitarianism challenge Enlightenment tenets of emancipation demonstrating technology in the service of propaganda. The power of the state over the individual (biopolitics, surveillance, police state, and militarism) is a recurrent theme in The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) that paints the picture of a repressive totalitarian regime governed by a Christian fundamentalist elite. Here, the testimony/narration of the main female character becomes an expression of immanent resistance. In examining modern and contemporary society, contesting Enlightenment and challenging the idea of the state, all five novels resonate with contemporary audiences.

Ημερομηνία δημιουργίας

Κυριακή 3 Μαρτίου 2024