HNRS 225 Exotic Lands, Alien Worlds: The British Imperial Romance

British adventure fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries frequently depicts the exploration, conquest, and colonization of other continents - even of other planets. In spite of their popularity, such works often interrogate and subvert the very imperialist/colonialist enterprise that, for readers, exerts so powerful an imaginative appeal. This course will focus upon fictional representations of the cultural and environmental impacts of colonization on terrestrial and extraterrestrial peoples and places. 

Credits

1

Offered

Fall, even years

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Understand the conventions of various popular fictional genres and subgenres (e.g., imperial romance, scientific romance, planetary romance, lost-world fiction)
2. Understand how the history of empire/colonization and imperialist/colonialist ideology inform the aforementioned (sub)genres
3. Understand how science (especially biology) informs not only the aforementioned (sub) genres, but also imperialist/colonialist ideology
4. Understand the cultural and environmental impacts of imperialism and colonialism
5. Understand how the aforementioned (sub)genres, despite their adventurous aspects, meditate gloomily upon topics such as evolution, extinction, and extermination (e.g., genodie)