Modules

Imperial Encounters: the Victorians and their World (EAS3141)

30 credits

Inspired by the rich, varied and often empowering global visions which characterised Victorian culture and society, this module examines popular and canonical literature from a period which saw Britain establish itself as the world’s most expansive nation, dominating the planet in an unprecedented manner. The module ranges across nineteenth-century literary forms and genres, and we will address themes and issues such as island ship-wrecks, treasure-hunting and piracy, time-space compression, muscular Christianity, primitivism and savagery, human-animal interaction, work and war, and oriental exoticism. As a result we will consider Victorian ideas about race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, science and technology, environmentalism, colonisation and globalisation.