ENGL 241 The "Deviant"

This course looks at representations of "deviance" in 19th- and early 20th-century literature. Underlying our examination will be an investigation of what constitutes the "normal" and the ways in which normativity polices its boundaries. Focusing primarily on literary and filmic representations of the sexual, racial, legal, and economic "taboo," in works including Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, E.M. Forester's Passage to India, and Djuna Barnes' Nightwood, we will seek to uncover the terms of normativity, against which the figure of the deviant emerges into representation. We will supplement our analysis of literature with readings from a range of theoretical methodologies, from psychoanalysis, legal theory, Marxist/economic theory, to postcolonial and critical race studies.

Major Requirement Met: Group II or Group IV