106-215 Imperial Fiction

Usually 25 points of first year English.

This subject is an introduction to nineteenth-century literature and culture understood not in terms of specific national literatures, but as part of a much broader imperial culture encompassing Britain and its Australian colonies. Focusing primarily on the cultural exchanges and traffic between Britain and Australia, the subject examines texts that were popular in their day and suggestive of broader trends in genre and narrative style. It foregrounds three issues that are common to but worked out very differently in colonial and metropolitan contexts. These issues are 1) the experience of exile and cultural dislocation, 2) the representation of 'vanished' and fictional peoples, and 3) the imperial background of popular genres like detective and occult-inspired fiction. Through examining the ways in which these themes are dealt with in both Britain and Australia, the subject will articulate the complex ways in which the experience and anxieties of empire impinge upon literary production in ways that are fundamental to an understanding of nineteenth-century literature. The subject will also introduce students to basic issues and reading practices in postcolonial and materialist literary theory, and include work by influential critics in the field such as Edward Said, Patrick Brantlinger, Homi Bhabha, and Ian McLean.

• acquire skills in research, including the competent use of library, and other (including online) information sources, and the ability to define areas of inquiry and methods of research;

• acquire skills in critical thinking and analysis, including the ability to question accepted wisdom, shape and strengthen persuasive judgments and arguments, and develop critical self-awareness;

• acquire skills in theoretical thinking through a productive engagement with relevant methodologies and paradigms in literary studies and the broader humanities;

• acquire skills in creative thinking through essay writing and tutorial discussion, through the innovative conceptualising of problems and an appreciation of the role of creativity in critical analysis;

• develop social, ethical and cultural understanding;

• develop intelligent and effective communication of knowledge and ideas:

• develop skills in time management and planning related to the successful organisation of workloads, disciplined self-direction and the ability to meet deadlines.

Written work totalling 4000 words comprising two 2000 word essays 50 each (due mid-semester and due at the end of semester respectively). A hurdle requirement of a minimum 80 attendance required.

A subject reader of primary material and critical essays, including essays and poems by Charles Harpur, Henry Kendall, Marcus Clarke, Mary Fortune, Henry Gyles Turner, Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin, and critical work by Patrick Brantlinger, Laurie Langbauer, Gail Ching-Liang Low, Edward Said, Ian Mclean and others will be available from the University Bookshop.

• M Clarke, His Natural Life. Oxford World's Classics 1997.
• C Dickens, Great Expectations. Penguin Classics 1998.
• A Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four. Oxford World's Classics 1997.
• E Favenc, Tales of the Tropics. NSW University Press 1997.
• H Rider Haggard, She. Penguin Classics 2002.
• R Praed, Fugitive Anne. Photocopy available from the English Department.