ENG 5890: Twentieth-Century British Literature
Fall 2022
Thursdays, 2-5pm
Title: Twentieth-Century British Literature
Dr. William Atkinson (atkinsoncw@appstate.edu)
Description:
In this class, we will consider British literature since about 1900 from a posthumanist perspective. Here, posthumanism is primarily understood to mean the belief that humanism a philosophy and as an ideology is exhausted and that its anthropocentrism has had a baleful influence on the planet. We will be reading to identify cracks in the anthropocentric literary edifice, looking for signs of posthumanist tendencies. I’m interested in planetary re-readings of the canon, so expect many of the usual museum-quality writers.