Browse Hierarchy ESH7011: Victorian Print Culture

"This course will examine the Victorian novel in the context of numerous other forms of print available to audiences during the nineteenth century. We will use investigative procedures derived from the disciplines of print culture and book history to ask how authors responded to the explosion in the volume of books, periodicals, and newspapers produced during this period for an emerging mass audience. Our approach will consider the book as a material object that circulated through society as well as the production, dissemination, and reception of literature as a collaborative process implicated in social networks. Particular attention will be given to the ways books had to accommodate themselves to a variety of new media throughout the nineteenth century. Related questions about literacy, reading practices, national identity, the commodification of literature, and the new power of the consumer will be explored through our readings of selected literary narratives as well as supplementary theoretical essays on various aspects of print culture."