What are Islands for, in Novels?

This course covers classic and more recent ‘island novels’ with a view to asking what the island affords the novel. Not what the island means, but rather what kinds of stories the island enables the novelist to tell. And not what the island means for the characters, but rather what it enables them to do and realize that they wouldn’t or couldn’t if they were simply home. While the integrity of each work will be respected in discussion, the labor of comparison will accumulate as the course progresses, touching on topics like personal transformation and social critique. We’ll whet our appetite with Shakespeare’s The Tempest, before turning to the novels (Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, Charlotte Gilman’s Herland and Adolfo Bioy Casares’ The Invention of Morel).

Course Outline

Course Syllabus

Notes

Online registration closes June 4 at 5 pm CT.

All Graham School courses use Canvas to distribute files and announcements. You will receive an invitation to join Canvas about a week before your course begins. Remote courses require you to login to Canvas to access the Zoom Classroom. Please visit the Liberal Arts Remote Learning Resources page to find step by step instructions for Canvas and Zoom.