This course will focus on some well-known early twentieth-century novels (Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway) and some of their later twentieth-century reworkings (Waugh, Coetzee, Cunningham). These novels will allow us to consider not just the changes going on in the twentieth century, but also how writers made sense of these changes in their work. In our discussions, we’ll divide our time between close-reading these texts themselves and investigating their social, cultural, and historical context.
In addition to a Course Reader with some historical context and supplemental readings, we will likely read novels by Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, J.M. Coetzee, and Michael Cunningham.
This course requires regular attendance and participation in class discussions, a group presentation, response papers, and a final research paper of 7-8 pages.

1. Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad
2. Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf
3. A Handful of Dust (1934) by Evelyn Waugh
4. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) by J.M. Coetzee
5. The Hours (2000) by Michael Cunningham
6. Course Pack at the Ave Copy Center