ENGL 381
Irreversible Transformations
Spring 2025
Division I
Class Details
Don’t cry over spilled milk, so we’ve been told. But why not? It’s bad enough that we’ve lost the milk. Why must we have the right attitude about it as well? This course examines the cultural norms surrounding irreversible transformations as they range from breakups and broken dishes to globalization and climate change. We will begin in the British nineteenth century, a time when irreversible transformations were viewed with optimism, and the progress of society was seen as inevitable. Sociologists, philosophers, and political activists were confident that they had discovered the motor of history and that utopia was just around the corner. Our focus will be on the novel and the ambivalent role it played in this culture. While the novel affirmed irreversible transformations through narratives of personal improvement it also directed its sympathies towards those left behind by progress. As we move into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we will see how this paradigm falls apart as history and everyday life lose a sense of direction in the face of cataclysmic events such as war and pandemic. We will read novels by Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Chinua Achebe, and Ling Ma. We will also engage with theorists such as Georg Lukács, Reinhart Koselleck, Hannah Arendt, and Anne Anlin Cheng.
The Class:
Format: seminar
Limit: 25
Expected: 25
Class#: 4008
Grading: no pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Limit: 25
Expected: 25
Class#: 4008
Grading: no pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation:
Two 8-10 page essays ; active class participation; other short informal writing exercises
Prerequisites:
a 100-level ENGL course, or a score of 5 on the AP English Literature exam, or a score of 6 or 7 on the Higher Level IB English exam
Enrollment Preferences:
English majors and sophomores who are considering the major
Distributions:
Divison I
Attributes:
ENGL Literary Histories B
ENGL Literary Histories C
ENGL Literary Histories C
Class Grid
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ENGL 381 - 01 (S) SEM Irreversible Transformations
ENGL 381 - 01 (S) SEM Irreversible TransformationsDivision IJeewon YooM 7:00 pm - 9:40 pm
Griffin 4
RORG 7:00 pm - 7:25 pm
Griffin 44008OpenNone