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Group III: Special Topics I

History & the Contemporary Novel

A hallway with many doors

This course will focus on the historical dimension of the contemporary novel.  We will explore historical fiction, the novel’s engagement with history and with questions of historical truth, and the interplay between the personal and the historical in recent fiction writing.  Works for this course are chosen to represent a broad historical and geographical range. Theorizations of the historical novel as well as the historical contexts of works on the syllabus will be studied in detail.  The international list of authors on the syllabus (from the U.K., Ireland, New Zealand, Israel, Spain, the U.S., South Africa and Germany) will include works by the following authors:  John Fowles, Claire Keegan, Lloyd Jones, A. B. Yehoshua, Javier Cercas, Jenny Erpenbeck, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, and Deborah Levy.

Readings

TBA

Assessment

Requirements include short and long written assignments, class participation, and presentations.

**Assessments subject to change**

Prerequisites

  • ENGL 200
  • ENGL 290

Department of English, Queen's University

Watson Hall
49 Bader Lane
Kingston ON K7L 3N6
Canada

Telephone (613) 533-2153

Undergraduate

Telephone (613) 533-6000 ext. 74446 extension 74446

Graduate

Telephone (613) 533-6000 ext. 74447 extension 74447

Queen's University is situated on traditional Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory.