ENG 236 - Sex, God, and the Victorians

This course examines a fundamental tension in Victorian culture: its strong sense of morality and religion, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, its perpetual fascination with the illicit, sensual, and sexual. Through our readings of works such as Stoker’s Dracula, Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, Brontë’s Villete, and the bizarre Gothic novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, we consider the ways that Victorian propriety and religion worked not only to regulate sexual desire and gender norms, but also to facilitate new ways of talking about and conceiving of gender, sex, and love.

Credits 4

Notes
Cross-listed with WGS 237

Area
Humanities

Division
Arts and Humanities

Compass Attributes
Global Honors, Humanities, Structure/Power/Inequality