Fall 2025 English UN3805 section 001

The Political Novel

Call Number 11760
Day & Time
Location
M 4:10pm-6:00pm
To be announced
Points 4
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Bruce Robbins
Type SEMINAR
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

Is the political novel a genre? It depends on your understanding both of politics and of the novel. If politics means parties, elections, and governing, then few novels of high quality would qualify. If on the other hand “the personal is the political,” as the slogan of the women’s movement has it, then almost everything the novel deals with is politics, and few novels would not qualify. This seminar will try to navigate between these extremes, focusing on novels that center on the question of how society is and ought to be constituted. Since this question is often posed ambitiously in so-called “genre fiction” like thrillers and sci-fi, which is not always honored as “literature,” it will include some examples of those genres as well as uncontroversial works of the highest literary value like Melville’s “Benito Cereno,” Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” and Camus’s “The Plague.”

 

Web Site Vergil
Department English and Comparative Literature
Enrollment 0 students (18 max) as of 9:05PM Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Subject English
Number UN3805
Section 001
Division Interfaculty
Open To Barnard College, Columbia College, Engineering:Undergraduate, Global Programs, General Studies
Note Relevant Distribution Codes: A3: 1900 present; C: Prose fict
Section key 20253ENGL3805W001