Professor Thomas Horan. Meets at The Citadel, Tuesday, 7-9:45 p.m.
Seminar in Post-1800 British Literature
While men such as Aldous Huxley and George Orwell feature prominently in the canon of dystopian literature, an equally rich strand of speculative fiction by women has challenged this androcentric paradigm. These books explore the ways in which political, cultural, and socioeconomic oppression are often fueled by sexism, misogyny, and embattled masculinity, while also uncovering the unforeseen consequences of utopian schemes that ignore or trivialize women’s issues and deprioritize gender equality. This course will provide a survey of the major novels of this still-evolving subgenre.
Readings will include:
Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night (1937)
Karin Boye’s Kallocain (1940)
Zoe Fairbairns’s Benefits (1979)
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
Marge Piercy’s He, She and It (Body of Glass) (1991)
Naomi Mitchison’s Solution Three (1995)
Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army (Daughters of the North) (2007)
Helen Smith’s The Miracle Inspector (2013)
Jennie Melamed’s Gather the Daughters (2017)
Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017)
Leni Zumas’s Red Clocks (2018)
Christina Dalcher’s Vox (2018)
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