An Overview:
This seminar surveys canonical novels from Daniel Defoe through Charles Dickens to Joseph Conrad. A vital question throughout the course is how novels narrativize homo economicus in the wider context of changing biopolitics. Michel Foucault traces the genealogy of modern form of governance in the intersections of flows of capital and national subjectivities. A concern will be the bending of a person on the micro-level along the ideas of assemblage and apparatus, in response to perceptions of crisis, risk, etc. in the context of economic flows.
In addition to novels, students will read established theories of the novel and important texts of economics, such as Adam Smith’s Wealth of the Nations and Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action. Students are required to take into account that these two strands of readings are not matched tightly and one is further encouraged to explore the possibilities of stitches or disarticulation therein.
The aim of this seminar is to familiarize students with British novels, literature of novel theory and exploration of new theoretical possibilities for conceiving of the connections between the English novel and the condition of capitalistic exchanges.