ClassInfo - Fall 2018 English Classes

Fall 2018 | ENGL 3092 Section 001: The Original Walking Dead: Misbehaving Dead Bodies in the 19th Century (34243)

Instructor(s): Ann Tandy-Treiber
Class Component:: Lecture
Credits:: 3 Credits
Grading Basis:: Student Option
Instructor Consent:: No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:: In Person Term Based
Times and Locations:: Regular Academic Session

09/04/2018 - 12/12/2018

Tue, Thu 09:45AM - 11:00AM

UMTC, East Bank

Lind Hall 302
Enrollment Status:: Closed (30 of 30 seats filled)

Course Catalog Description:: Examination and analysis of 19th-century British literature about dead bodies, the science of death, burial practices and anxieties, and theories of the supernatural. This course includes fiction and poetry but also non-fiction, historical documents, and sensationalist media.
Class Description:: Scientific knowledge about the human body and the process of death expanded hugely in the 19th Century, at the same time that increases in urban populations in England gave rise to the problem of what to do with all the bodies. Concurrently, English explorers in other parts of the world were finding evidence of "buried" civilizations, and construction workers for the Thames Embankment and the London Underground were digging through London's own buried past. Death, and in particular the dead body, became a nexus of anxiety: individual, social, scientific, and historical. In this course, we will trace a number of Victorian responses to these knew kinds of knowledge: spiritualism, funeral practices, fears of premature burial, cremation, vampirism, armchair anthropology, and the particular problem posed by the dead female body. Texts will include Frankenstein, Dracula, She, and a variety of short stories, poems, and essays. We will end the semester with a brief look at current cultural takes on these issues.
Who Should Take This Class?:: This course straddles many disciplines: it has literature at its core, but we discuss the history of science and medicine and wide-ranging cultural responses to death and dying. It is an excellent course for anyone considering going into medicine, public health, the history of science, mortuary science, history, or literature.
Textbooks:: https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/34243/1189
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:: 21 March 2018

ClassInfo Links - Fall 2018 English Classes

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