Renegades, Reprobates, and Castaways

In this ONLINE course, we’ll look at a range of literary works--including short stories, novels, graphic novels, films, and electronic literature—populated by characters cast as pirates, degenerates, depraved, and miscreants. We’ll examine how the seemingly disreputable characters, settings, and/or forms offer alternative visions of a just society by challenging powerful institutions, conventional moral principles, and/or dominant conceptions of the “normal” and “natural.”