Neo-Victorianism: Rewriting the Long Nineteenth Century

This seminar examines recent novelists rewriting canonical 19th-century texts by Dickens and others, playing with matters of postcoloniality and gender. Jack Maggs, for example, answers the questions, "Can the subaltern speak?" and "Does the empire write back?" while Fingersmith offers a lesbian version of the Victorian sensation novel. Patchwork Girl rewrites Frankenstein, stitching together fiction, gender, and identity. Enrollment limited to 15.