Course Requirements

Attendance Policy
Since this class will be run as a a seminar, your presence and participation are crucial. Therefore, more than three unexcused absences *will* adversely affect your grade. More than six constitues failure. Please take this seriously. If you think you will not be attending on a regular basis drop the class now rather than having to either withdraw or fail later. If a situation develops over the course of the semester that keeps you from attending classes regularly you must contact the dean of your school so that s/he can notify all of your professors of the situation.

Academic Integrity Policy

  • University Policy:The University defines academic dishonesty as "cheating of any kind, including misrepresenting one's own work, taking credit for the work of others without crediting them and without appropriate authorization, and the fabrication of information." Please take the time to review the Code of Academic Integrity . The minimum penalty for such offenses, whether on rough or final drafts, is to fail the assignment; the more common penalty is to fail the course.
  • My Policy: Knowingly claiming the work of another as your is a flaming insult to anyone who makes his or her living by writing. It is also against the law. Please do not do it. If caught, you *will* fail the class at a minimum and be referred for possible disiplinary action.

    Required Texts

  • Roxana - Daniel Defoe
  • Clarissa (abridged version) - Samuel Richardson
  • Humphrey Clinker - Tobias Smollett
  • Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne
  • Evilina - Fanny Burney
  • Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman - Mary Wollsteoncraft
  • The Monk - Matthew Lewis

    Writing and Research Assignments

  • Ten short Unannounced Quizzes - 20 points
  • Discussion - 10 points
  • One long (approximately 20 pages) research project (including proposal and annotated bibliography) that aims to contextualize some aspect of the novels we will be reading. This research will be begun early in the semester. An abbreviated version of the proposal will be presented in class* - 40 points
  • Final take home examination - 30 points *Please note - the topic of your research project will, in large part determine which discussion group you will be assigned to.

    Research Resources
    We will be building - collectively - a database of research resources over the course of the semester. Here are two places to get you started.

  • My homepage, where you will find some general research resources.
  • For more specific research on the Eighteenth century check here.
  • And here for additional sources from our librarian.

    Formatting
    Whether we like it or not, appearances count.

  • 12 point font (font choice is up to you as long as it is readable)
  • black ink
  • one-sided printouts
  • double-spaced
  • properly headed (name and date) and paginated (last name and page number in upper right hand corner of every page except the first).*
  • ONLY hard copies will be accepted. I will not accept electronic submissions unless the circumstances are extraordinary, life-threatening, or wildly humourous.

    *Please take note - if papers lack either documentation or proper heading and pagination I will immediately return them unread. Save the rainforests!!!

    Some ideas to get you thinking about possible research topics:
  • What role does material culture play - clothing, furniture, movable goods, etc. - in the dynamic of these novels?
  • What role does gender play? Consider both the gender of the characters and of the authors.
  • Why all the disguise?
  • Images of both confinement and breaking out of confinement are all over these novels. Why? And how do they function?
  • The state of early modern "psychology" - how was the psyche constructed? How does it differ from our own conceptualizations of the mind?
  • How are both the characters in these novels and indeed the novels themselves transgressive?
  • The 18th gave us Gothic literature. Why?
  • How do politics/economics figure into the dynamic of these novels?
  • Marginalized groups. Who were they in the 18thC. How are they portrayed in the novels. *Are* they portrayed in the novels? What can one infer from absence?
  • Exactly what is a novel?
  • The 18thC as the original Information Age! How did the increasing importance of newspapers and the postal service affect both characters and the genre itself.
  • Sexuality in the 18C (as distinct from issues of gender - or as distinct as these two topic *can* be).
  • The movement toward and between provate and public spheres and the related issues of increasing isolation at home at a time of increasing expansion of empire abroad.
  • Authority! Who has it? Who remains disenfranchised? Obvious class issses would come into play here.
  • How writers come into being during our period. How do the writers within the texts as well as the meta-authors constitue themselves.
  • The commodification of information.

    For more ideas, you can browse through the Call for Papers of the upcoming American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Annual Conference.