Host Harry Kreisler speaks with Tariq Ali, a British-Pakistani journalist, novelist, playwright, publisher, filmmaker, and renowned social critic about Islam, empire, and the left. (57 min)
This course studies several important examples of the genre that between the early 18th century and the end of the 20th has come to seem the definitive literary form for representing and coming to terms with modernity. Syllabi vary, but the class usually attempts to convey a sense of the form’s development over the past few centuries. Among topics likely to be considered are: developments in narrative technique, the novel’s relation to history, national versus linguistic definitions of an “English” novel, social criticism in the novel, realism versus “romance,” the novel’s construction of subjectivities. Writers studied have included Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Lawrence Sterne, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Salman Rushdie.
Lesson plan and activities on Mariano José de Larra's article "Vuelva usted mañana"
This course will explore the rich diversity of women’s voices and experiences as reflected in writings and films by and about Latina writers, filmmakers, and artists. Through close readings, class discussions and independently researched student presentations related to each text, we will explore not only the unique, individual voice of the writer, but also the cultural, social and political contexts which inform their narratives. We will also examine the roles that gender, familial ties and social and political preoccupations play in shaping the values of the writers and the nature of the characters encountered in the texts and films.