English 250 - Reading the Novel

An introduction to the study of the novel, through the exploration of a variety of critical terms (plot, character, point of view, tone, realism, identification, genre fiction, the book) and methodologies (structuralist, Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic). We will draw on a selection of novels in English to illustrate and complicate those terms; possible authors include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Kazuo Ishiguro, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, Emma Donoghue, David Foster Wallace, Monique Truong, Jennifer Egan.

Instruction will be centered on synchronous class meetings, but those meetings will be prepared for by asynchronous means: mainly twice-a-week Moodle prompts and postings, but also my personal videos on backgrounds for the readings. Individual meetings with all students, both before and after papers, will be conducted either by phone or on Zoom.

Preference given to sophomores. Limited to 35 students. Fall semester. Professor Sanborn.