Wonderlands: Literature and Culture in the 19th Century

This unit considers important contemporary cultural and social questions by way of readings in science fiction, fantasy fiction and fiction, class ideologies and revolutionary politics from a selection of novels and poetry of the nineteenth century. The novels and poems examine political and social change in Europe between 1790 and 1900, with a view to making critical links between current ideologies and literary forms and their formulation in a nineteenth century text. As such, works ranging from Frankenstein to Alice in Wonderland are deployed to consider the textual representations of important cultural, social, and sexual issues.