SLN: 22533
TTh 1:30-2:45
Tempe LL 148
 
   
     
 
Last modified:
2/27/2011
 
     

 

ENG 430: Adventure Fiction and Masculinity in the Nineteenth Century

Spring 2012


This course meets on Tuesday and Thursdays from 1:30-2:45 PM . Readings are listed below on the syllabus. In addition to completing the weekly reading, submitting the writing assignments, and attending class regularly and participating in in-class discussion, you are required to participate in asynchronous Blackboard discussions every week. .

Dan Bivona
Office: L&L 224
dbivona@asu.edu
Office hours: T, Th 3-5 PM (office); W 7-9 PM (online)
Skype/Office Phone: 602-903-3825
http://www.public.asu.edu/~dbivona

Adventure fiction became a popular genre over the course of the nineteenth century. This happened gradually as the form disaggregated from other genres (Newgate fiction, domestic fiction, and so on) and publishers developed the ability to differentiate their market and identify the readers they especially wanted to target for sales: in the case of adventure fiction, this largely meant boys and men, by the end of the century. Thus, adventure fiction as a genre gradually becomes a culture-wide meditation on what it means to be male and in what male heroism consists in an increasingly middle class world of desk work. Besides doing the cultural work of constructing male fantasy in the process of appealing to it, adventure fiction as a genre served to mark other cultural boundaries: increasingly, as the century wore on, the emerging boundary between "serious" fiction and "popular" fiction. While writers of adventure fiction such as Robert Louis Stevenson eventually found themselves pressed to justify their line of work to the arbiters of "high cultural" taste at the end of the century, other writers such as Joseph Conrad developed a form of "serious" fiction that relied heavily on the deliberate subversion of adventure fiction conventions which are presumed to furnish the minds of the novelist's intended readers. The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the range of adventure fiction in the nineteenth century and to situate it in its historical context. In addition, the course should help you develop your critical interpretive skills, assist you in improving your writing skills, and help you develop your research skills. You need not have studied nineteenth century British literature previously to take this course.

Assignments include 2 critical papers, 1 critical research paper, a take-home final, and regular participation in both Blackboard discussions and in-class discussions. You also have the option to revise and resubmit one of your first two critical papers for an additional grade.

Assignment Where it can be found Due Date % of Final Grade
1st critical paper, 3-5 pages in length* Topics in the "Writing Assignments" area of Blackboard due as an email attachment to dbivona@asu.edu on February 2 at 11:59 PM
15%
2nd critical paper, 3-5 pages in length* Topics in the "Writing Assignments" area of Blackboard due as an email attachment to dbivona@asu.edu on March 8 at 11:59 PM
15%
3rd paper: critical research paper Topics in the "Writing Assignments" area of Blackboard due as an email attachment to dbivona@asu.edu on April 29 at 11:59 PM
30%
Take-home final exam It will appear on the course Blackboard on April 30. due as an email attachment to dbivona@asu.edu on May 1 at 11:59 PM
20%
Weekly contributions to class discussion, on Blackboard and in class; regular attendance; quizzes on reading "Discussion Board" area of Blackboard and in class throughout
20%
Total    
100%

*You have the option to revise and resubmit one of the two critical papers for an additional grade. If you choose to do so, your first draft grade will count for 7.5% of your final grade and the revision grade will count for 7.5%. Revisions are due in the digital drop box on the final day of class, April 24.

The first two papers should be 3-5 pages in length. Topics can be found on Blackboard by following the "Writing Assignments" link. These papers are to be submitted to the digital drop box in Blackboard no later than 11:59.59 pm on the due date. Paper grades will be reduced a grade for every day they are late. Use MLA Format for citations.

The Guidelines for paper grading can be found here: http://www.public.asu.edu/~dbivona/papers.html.

A note on getting started: Effective note-taking is very important, because you will need to use your notes to find the evidence to support the claims you make in your papers. An effective literary thesis should assert something about the meaning of the work that is not obvious to everyone who has read it. Moreover, an effective literary thesis takes a stand on an issue of significant controversy over the meaning of the novel. The papers topics, which can be found on Blackboard in the "Writing Assignments" area, will provide you with question prompts.

The final paper, a critical research paper, should be 10-12 pages in length. You should use at least three secondary sources. Again, topics will be found on the course Blackboard in the "Writing Assignments" area.

Weekly contributions to online class discussion: Everyone is required to pose at least 6 questions to the group online over the course of the 16-week term. In addition, every student is required to respond at least once per week to other students' or my questions. You will be graded both on the frequency of your contributions and on the quality of them. The best strategy is to post at least 2 or 3 thoughtful responses and/or questions per week. Please be sure to make them thoughtful, paragraph-long responses, not quick, two-word responses, and be sure to observe the conventions of civil online discourse (no flaming or personal remarks about other students in the class). Questions may deal with the previous week's reading or with the upcoming week's reading. You may ask questions or make responses that relate current material to material introduced earlier in the course, but please do not pose questions about the writing that the rest of the class will not have read for two more weeks. Questions and responses should be posted no later than midnight MST on Sunday of each week to be counted for that week.

Topics raised in the the online discussions will be discussed in class as well.

Please note that all work done for this course must be your original work. If you make use of the insights of other writers, you must cite them in your papers using MLA citation format. Punishments for plagiarism can be very severe and may include a permanent grade of "failure with academic dishonesty" or suspension from the University. If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism, please ask me.

Author Title Edition
Defoe, Daniel Robinson Crusoe (1719) Oxford World Classics
Marryat, Frederick Masterman Ready (1842) Google Books online (Longmans, 1842)
Dumas, Alexander The Three Musketeers (1845) Oxford World Classics
Haggard, H. Rider She (1888) Oxford World Classics
Wells, H. G. The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) Penguin
Stevenson, Robert Louis The Master of Ballantrae (1889) Oxford World Classics
Kipling, Rudyard Kim (1901) Oxford World Classics
Conrad, Joseph Lord Jim (1900) Oxford World Classics
Steel, Flora Annie On the Face of the Waters (1897) Google Books online (Macmillan, 1897)

These books are currently available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Google Books. Steele's novel is available only through Google Books. You are welcome to use kindle or nook editions of these books if you wish.


Class Topic Reading/Assignments
Jan. 5

No class: MLA convention

Jan. 10 Introduction to the course
Jan. 12 Homo Economicus and the Economy of Adventure
  • Robinson Crusoe cont.
Jan. 17 Homo Economicus cont.
  • Robinson Crusoe cont.
Jan. 19 Homo Economicus cont.
  • Robinson Crusoe cont.
Jan. 24 High Seas Adventure
  • Marryat, Masterman Ready. 3 vols. London: Longmans, 1841. (available from Google Books)
  • Marshall, David B. "'A canoe and a tent and God's great out-of-doors': Muscular Christianity and the Flight from Domesticity, 1880s to 1930s." Masculinity and the Other: Historical Perspectives. Eds. Heather Ellis and Jessica Meyer. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009: 23-42 (available at http://lib.asu.edu)
Jan. 26 High Seas Adventure
  • Marryat, Masterman Ready
  • Paley, William. Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. London: J. Faulder, 1809: 1-17 (available from Google Books)
Jan. 31 You always stab the one you love: Male Love and Historical Fiction
  • Dumas, Three Musketeers
Feb. 2* You always stab the one you love: Male Love and Historical Fiction
  • Dumas, The Three Musketeers
Feb. 7 You always stab the one you love: Male Love and Historical Fiction
  • Dumas, The Three Musketeers
Feb. 9 Male Love and Historical Fiction cont.
  • Dumas, The Three Musketeers
Feb. 14 Darwinism and Island Adventure
  • Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
Feb. 16 Darwinism and Island Adventure.
  • Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
Feb. 21 Africa and the Unknown Female Body
  • Haggard, She
Feb. 23 Africa and the Unknown Female Body
  • Haggard, She
Feb. 28 Africa and the Unknown Female Body
  • Haggard, She
Mar. 1 The Indian Mutiny and Imperial Panic
Mar. 6 The Indian Mutiny and Imperial Panic
Mar. 8** The Indian Mutiny and Imperial Panic
Mar. 13 The Scottish Diaspora and the Doppelganger Tale
  • Stevenson, Master of Ballantrae
Mar. 15 The Scottish Diaspora and the Doppelganger Tale
  • Stevenson, Master of Ballantrae
Mar. 20-22
No class: Spring Break
Mar. 27 The "Great Game": India and Empire as Adventure
  • Kipling, Kim
Mar. 29 The "Great Game": India and Empire as Adventure
  • Kipling, Kim
Apr. 3 The "Great Game": India and Empire as Adventure
  • Kipling, Kim
Apr. 5 The "Great Game": India and Empire as Adventure
  • Kipling, Kim
Apr. 10 Empire, Male Love, and Anti-Adventure
  • Conrad, Lord Jim
Apr. 12 Empire, Male Love, and Anti-Adventure
  • Conrad, Lord Jim
Apr. 17 Empire, Male Love, and Anti-Adventure
  • Conrad, Lord Jim
Apr. 19 Empire, Male Love, and Anti-Adventure
  • Conrad, Lord Jim
Apr. 24 Last Day of Class TBA
April 29*** Due date of critical research paper  
May 1**** Take-home final exam due  

* Due date of first critical paper.
**Due date of second critical paper.
***Due date of critical research paper.
****Due date of take-home final exam.

N.B. All the secondary sources on the reading list are available online, either directly on the internet or indirectly through the validation page of the ASU Libraries (http://lib.asu.edu).

  • Literature Online (database of primary texts, British and American literature)
  • Literature Resource Center (access to a variety of primary and secondary texts, primarily British and American literature)
  • Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (biographies of British literary and historical figures)
  • Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (self-explanatory)
  • JSTOR (large database of secondary sources in a variety of disciplines, some reaching back to the nineteenth century)
  • Project Muse (large database of recent [1999-2008] secondary sources in a variety of disciplines)
  • Periodicals Archive Online (large database of secondary sources, many from the nineteenth century)
  • Nineteenth Century Masterfile (digital index: identifies locations of primary and secondary material)
  • Academic Search Premier (large database of primarily secondary source material)
  • MLA Bibliography (bibliographic index of secondary sources in modern language and literature study)

N. B. All the above sources can be searched online through the ASU Library website. You must go through this site in order to be validated to use these sources.

***

The sites below can be searched directly through the internet: