Mar 29, 2024  
2015-2016 Academic Catalog 
    
2015-2016 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ENG 327-01 - The Romantics

4 credits (Spring)
Electric Romanticism: The Technologies of the Romantic Period and of Romantic Studies. This course will involve a two-pronged approach to the relationship between British Romanticism and technology. On the one hand, we will study texts of the Romantic period that address technological innovation themselves; these texts will include, for example, a unit placing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in the context of Romantic-era science and technology. We will also address other scientific innovations at the time, such as the discovery of oxygen, the development of the difference engine, and early evolutionary theory. On the other hand, we will examine and use contemporary technologies that enable new ways of studying Romantic texts, from online editions and databases to new tools for analyzing individual texts and large corpuses of texts. We will weave these threads together with critical and theoretical readings about Romantic and present-day technologies, and students will have the option to write a conventional term paper or to develop a digital project based on the course readings.

Prerequisite: ENG 224 .
Instructor: Simpson