EN2033: Non-Realist Writing 2015-16
Co-ordinator: Dr Ailise Bulfin ([email protected])
This course will examine a major fictional tradition, concurrent with realism, and often
understood as its shadow or unconscious form. ‘Non-realism’ is a capacious term, and our
reading will cover a variety of genres and modes, from Gothic and supernatural fiction to
science fiction and utopian (or dystopian) and apocalyptic tales. Throughout, attention will
be given to the potential of non-realist fictional forms to imagine other worlds, or other
versions of this world, and thus become a means of articulating alternative social and
political aspirations.
Week 1: Introduction: Gothic, Science-Fiction and the Apocalypse
Week 2: Mary Shelley, The Last Man (1826)
Week 3: Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
Week 4: Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)
Week 5: H. G. Wells, The War in the Air (1908)
Week 6: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)
Week 7: Study Week
Week 8: John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (1951)
Week 9: P. D. James, The Children of Men (1992)
Week 10: Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)
Week 11: Colson Whitehead, Zone One (2011)
Week 12: Conclusion: Monstrosity and Catastrophe & Exam Q & A
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the module students will be able to:
-
demonstrate a general understanding of the literary mode of non-realist writing
demonstrate detailed understanding of the key non-realist genres covered on the
module: Gothic, science fiction and utopian/dystopian fiction
engage in close textual readings of the core module texts
relate the texts to their historical and cultural contexts
demonstrate an understanding of the impulses behind and the narrative strategies
used within non-realist representations
be conversant with the main critical approaches to the types of non-realist writing
covered on the module
Selected further reading:
Chris Baldick, In Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity and Nineteenth-century Writing
(OUP, 1988)
John Carey, The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary
Intelligentsia 1880-1939 (London: Faber, 1992)
I. F. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars 1763-3749 (OUP, 1992)
W W Dixon, Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema
(London: Wallflower, 2003)
H Bruce Franklin, War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination (OUP, 1988)
William Hughes and Andrew Smith (eds), The Victorian Gothic (Edinburgh: EUP, 2012)
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (London: Harper Collins, 1994)
Darryl Jones, Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film (London: Arnold; and New York:
OUP, 2002).
Sven Lindqvist, A History of Bombing (New York: The New Press, 2001)
Roger Luckhurst, Science Fiction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005)
Kim Newman, Millennium Movies: End of the World Cinema (London: Titan, 1999)
John S Partington, Building Cosmopolis: The Political thought of H G Wells (London: Ashgate,
2003)
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 2002)
David Punter, The Literature of Terror, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1996)
Jerome F Shapiro, Atomic Bomb Cinema (London: Routledge: 2002)
David J Skal, Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture (New York: Norton, 1999)
Andrew Smith, Gothic Literature, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: EUP, 2013)
Brian Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950 (London: Fourth Estate, 1985)
Sara Wasson and Emily Alder (eds) Gothic Science Fiction (Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 2011)