ENGL 248 Money, Gender, and the Nineteenth Century Novel

The course will bring together 19th century texts on political economy, such as those by Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill, and novels of 19th-century England and America, such as Edith Wharton's House of Mirth, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, and Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit. This interdisciplinary perspective will enable us to think through the shifts in values, ethics, and material conditions that accompanied changes such as the Industrial Revolution and the spread of the British Empire in the 19th century. A focus on gender will enable us to track how economic changes affected the positions and work lives of women and men differently. An interdisciplinary perspective (Economics and Literature) will enable us to ground changes in characters' values and perceptions in historical perspective and to take note of the way that market practices and values infiltrate the language of the novels.

Major Requirement Met: Group II