ENGL9915 · English

PhD Seminar: The Unwritten Eighteenth Century

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

As we face down racial hostilities, environmental catastrophes, and anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation in the twenty-first century, literary studies needs to be more flexible than ever before. Yet, the study of the literature of the past can feel bound by the white, Eurocentric, anthropocentric canon that is its inevitable object of study as well as by historicist methods that govern the field, which grew in collusion with racist and imperial worldviews. Taking a broad body of eighteenth-century texts as its case study, this class will explore different methods that scholars are using to make the world outside the written canon central to the field and breathe new life into literary history.